Twilight Through the Looking Glass
by Willa Mitty
Summary: A chapter-by-chapter rewrite of the original . . . in reverse. This time, Edward is an ordinary human boy living with his mother in Forks, and Bella and Charlie are Cullen "cousins" who have just moved into town . . .
1. PREFACE & NEW GIRL (PREFACE&FIRST SIGHT)

**Beginning notes:** This is an Edward is the human/Bella is the vampire version of _Twilight_ with a twist - the twist being that I tried to change as little as possible from the original story. A lot of writers make major changes to the story when they write these - different characters, different vampire powers, different timelines, different plot points (and the unforgivable - Charlie is gone! NO!), and when I went looking for a story where everything was as close to the original as possible, I couldn't find the right one. So I decided to write my own.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Twilight_, which goes without saying, really. _Twilight_ and all characters, settings, etc. portrayed therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. She owns the sandbox. She's just nice enough to let us play in it sometimes. (Thank you, Stephenie!) Likewise, I do not own _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ or _Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There_. They belong to . . . well, I don't really know who they belong to because Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) has been dead for over a hundred years. Someone does own them, I guess, but I'm not them, whoever they are.

**_Twilight Through the Looking Glass_**

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,  
thou shalt not eat of it:  
for in the day that thou eatest thereof  
thou shalt surely die."

Genesis 2:17

"Now, if you'll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I'll tell you all my ideas about  
Looking-glass House. First, there's the room that you can see through the glass - that's  
just the same as our drawing room, only the things go the other way . . ."

_Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There_, Lewis Carroll

PREFACE

When you're seventeen years old, you don't think much about dying. Death is something that happens to other people - to older people, to people who have diseases like cancer, or to people you barely know, like the father of the girl who sits next to you in Biology class - but never to you. Still, whether I'd thought about it or not, mine was here. Mine was now.

I wondered if this, my final act, would be enough, if it would finally make me worthy in his eyes. I was giving my life in exchange for his. If this, the ultimate sacrifice, wasn't enough, then there was nothing more that I could give.

Across the room, a triumphant smile spread across my killer's face. I fought back a shudder.

Why hadn't I realized that I was out of my element here in this strange new world that I had somehow been drawn into? This world away from reality was one that I was never intended for, and I was so far out of my league that I'd never really stood a chance. Every wonderful moment of the past few weeks, I'd been inching ever closer to this place, to this final end, but even now, as I stared into the smiling face of my own impending death, I wouldn't have traded a single one of those moments for anything.

1. NEW GIRL  
_(FIRST SIGHT)_

That morning began much like any other morning, with the blaring of the radio in my ear. I spent about five seconds fantasizing about hitting the snooze bar and extending the weekend by another nine measly minutes, but I knew better. Instead, I leaned over to turn the volume down to a much lower level and lay there staring at the ceiling as the weatherman detailed the forecast for the day - cloudy with rain. Not exactly a surprise in this town. If the little town of Forks, Washington is known for anything, it's known for the rain. Supposedly it rains here more than in any other place in the continental United States. I guess every town has to have something to brag about.

Rising from bed, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stumbled toward the shower on a stiff ankle. My mother was working the night shift this week, so I tried to be as quiet as possible. I showered as quickly - and as quietly - as I could in the little bathroom that we shared, then dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast. I sat in one of the three chairs that surrounded our tiny kitchen table and stared out at the falling rain as I ate, then washed my few dishes in the sink - no sense leaving them for my mother - and stacked them in the dish rack to dry. Back in my bedroom, I ran a comb through my impossible hair, grabbed my jacket and backpack, and headed out the door into the rain, the stiffness in my left ankle forgotten.

The drive to Forks High School was uneventful, and by the time I parked my car, the drizzle had lightened into a fine mist. In this town, a light mist qualifies as nice weather, so there were several groups of students gathered in the parking lot, catching up on the events of the weekend before class started. I leaned back into the Volvo's interior to pull my backpack out of the front seat and turned to close the door behind me. That was when I saw it. In the last row of parking spaces on the far side of the lot was a truck I'd never seen before.

It was old, far older than I was, and older than my mother, too. In fact, the last time I'd seen a vehicle this ancient had been in an old coming-of-age movie set back in the 1960s. This old truck, however, was far from being on its last legs. The paint was a bright, shiny red, and the way the rain beaded up on its glossy surface suggested that it had recently been waxed, and not with the cheap stuff, either. The chrome was so shiny that I probably could have seen my reflection in it, had I been standing closer. I wondered which student had been forced to drive their parents' toy to school today.

"Hey, Masen," Mike Newton greeted me as he left the group of students gathered around Tyler Crowley's van and headed in my direction. Today, as every day for the last several weeks, his clothes were neatly pressed, and his blond hair was gelled and spiked to perfection. I had seen him watching Jessica Stanley a little more closely over the last few weeks. He hadn't seemed to work up the courage to make any move in her direction yet, but he was still trying to impress her.

"Hey, Newton."

"How was the weekend?" he asked. I shrugged. I had nothing interesting to report. I gestured toward the other side of the lot.

"Whose truck?" He turned to look, apparently noticing it for the first time.

"No clue," he said, shaking his head. "I haven't seen it around town."

"It looks like somebody spent a lot of money on it," I told him as we turned toward the building that housed our lockers. "I'd hate to be the guy to put a scuff on that paint job."

"I was just thinking the exact same thing," Mike answered.

. . . . .

If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say _"I was just thinking that myself"_ or _"You took the words right out of my mouth,"_ I'd have Harvard paid for. Sometimes, in my more imaginative moments, I'd swear I could read people's minds. When I was a little kid, I even tested the theory on my mother, telling her to think of a number and then trying to guess which number it was. I never got it right. My mother had a theory, though. She insisted that the reason I was usually thinking the same things as other people was that I listened with more than my ears, that I paid more attention to people's moods and body language than other people did. That's how I knew that Mike had a thing for Jessica, even though he'd never said a word to me about her. Then again, Mike always was pretty easy to read.

Mike and I weren't the closest of friends. Truth be told, I really didn't have any close friends. I was the sort of person who is somewhat friendly with everyone, yet not close to anyone. At the beginning of my sophomore year, when Mike had first started actively trying to be my friend, I knew that he was only making the effort because of his guilt over "the incident," but somehow, a year and a half later, Mike was still hanging around, and I didn't think guilt had anything to do with it. Well, not outside of the gymnasium, that is. Our friendship had become more of a habit than an actual friendship, just as it had become my habit to sit with Mike and his friends during lunch.

When I arrived at the lunch table that day, I found that most of the regulars were already seated. Jessica Stanley, the object of Mike's interest, was already there with her friend Lauren Mallory. Lauren's pale blond head was bent close to Jessica's dark curls, and I couldn't help but wonder what sort of sadistic gossip Lauren was spreading, or who the innocent victim was. Everyone knew that Lauren had a vicious streak a mile wide. I tried to stay clear of her myself. Jessica seemed nice most of the time, but sometimes I got the feeling that she could be just as brutal as Lauren when she wanted to be. On the other side of Lauren sat Angela Weber, as different from Lauren as night and day. Angela was a shy, sweet girl. She always seemed determined to see the best in everyone, but I could never figure out just what she saw in Lauren Mallory that was worth her time. I took the empty seat next to Jessica and was trying to ignore her when I overheard her whispering, "that reddish-brown hair is always so . . . tousled, and those dreamy green eyes . . ." They were whispering about me. I had hoped that Jessica had gotten over her crush. Apparently not.

"I thought for sure we were going to have a pop quiz in English," Mike muttered as he sat his lunch tray down on the table across from me. "I just don't get _Wuthering Heights._ I mean, who cares? Everybody in it's crazy."

I didn't answer. I'd been raised around the classics - my mother was a die hard fan of anything by Austen or the Brontë sisters - so _Wuthering Heights_ made perfect sense to me. Of course, in my opinion, "crazy" wasn't the best way to describe Cathy and Heathcliff. "Horrible people intent on ruining each other's lives" would have been a more accurate description.

"So," Jessica interrupted, always willing to draw attention to herself, "has anyone heard anything about the new girl?"

"New girl?" I asked, suddenly remembering that today was the day the daughter of the town's new police chief was supposed to be joining our student body. In a school as small as this one, a new student was a major news event.

"Yeah, you know, Isabella Swan." Jessica nudged me playfully with her elbow, but I had a feeling that she was annoyed that I hadn't kept up with current gossip.

"Actually, I think she prefers 'Bella.' That's what she's been telling teachers,'" Angela Weber added helpfully from her corner of the table.

"And that's all anyone can find out about her." Jessica frowned. "She doesn't act very friendly, and she's already all buddy-buddy with _the Cullens._" Her voice lowered slightly on the last two words. Everyone's did when they spoke of that particular family.

_The Cullens._ My eyes automatically flitted to the three people seated at a table on the other side of the cafeteria. The Cullens were . . . unusual, to say the least. There were two boys and two girls, the adopted and foster children of Dr. and Mrs. Cullen. They had moved here over the summer two years ago. Only two of them, Emmett and Alice, had been legally adopted as members of the Cullen family. Jasper and Rosalie, the twins, were still technically Hales. They all lived together in the same house, and, much to the shock of this little town, they were dating each other. Emmett Cullen, the big, muscular one that no one would have dreamed of picking a fight with was dating Rosalie Hale, whose nearly unbelievable beauty had caused most of the male populace to drool the first day she'd set foot in Forks High School. I had watched Mike's jaw literally fall open that first day. Rosalie didn't really do it for me, though. Sure, she was beautiful, but something about her had always been a turn-off, like she was giving off bad vibes or something. Alice, Emmett's pixie-like younger sister, was dating Jasper. Jasper, with his strange, moody expressions, was the most unusual of them all. Lauren had once spread a rumor that he was so weird because he was on drugs.

They were all beautiful, almost unnaturally so. But there was something about them that wasn't right, something about their perfection, their flawless pale skin, and the strange purplish circles under their eyes that just didn't sit well with the rest of the student body. They mostly kept to themselves, and the rest of us were happy to leave them be. Some people went so far as to describe them as "creepy," and I couldn't exactly disagree, but there was something about them that pulled at me sometimes. It was like . . . I knew they had some secret, and some intrinsic part of me wanted to know what it was. Even now I could feel it pulling at me. Emmett, who looked like he could _be_ the entire football team - what was that in his expression as he glared down at his lunch tray? Annoyance? Rosalie had a faint smile on her face, as though some private thought had pleased her. I wondered what it was. She was looking across the table, her eyes not quite focused on Jasper, who seemed . . . edgy . . . or nervous . . . or something . . . but where was little Alice, with her energetic bounce and her enigmatic expressions? Something about her eccentricities always made me hungry to know just what was running through her head . . .

A finger snapped in front of my face, and I blinked. "Hello? Earth to Edward," Mike said, a smile creeping across his face. "I know Rosalie Hale's a bombshell, but I wouldn't stare if I were you. That boyfriend of hers is built like a _tank_."

"No, I just . . . I was wondering where Alice Cullen is." I pulled my eyes away from the other side of the room and focused on Mike.

"I wouldn't mess with her, either. Her boyfriend is just . . . weird." Mike gave a shudder.

"No, I was just wondering . . . nevermind." I shook my head and looked down at my lunch tray. My imagination was running away with me again. My father was always scolding me for letting it do that.

"But, does anyone know anything else about her?" Jessica prodded, clearly unwilling to let the conversation go. I was sure she wanted some juicy new piece of information to share in her next class. "I mean, what's up with her and the Cullens, anyway?"

"They're her cousins," I remembered aloud. "My mom was telling me about it over the weekend, and I forgot all about it." I ignored Jessica's disapproving glare as I tried to remember the details. "Mom was talking to Dr. Cullen at the hospital the other day. Chief Swan's wife was Dr. Cullen's older sister, but she died a while back. Bella was their only child. She and Chief Swan moved here so that they could be closer to the rest of the family."

"Interesting . . ." There was an excited gleam in Jessica's eye as she turned to give a speculative look to the empty chairs at the Cullens' lunch table. These new details must have met with her approval. Apparently she'd already forgiven me for withholding information.

"That's sad," Angela said, frowning. "At least she has family here, people she knows. The first day at a new school has to be tough." Mike and I nodded in agreement - we'd both done our stint as the new kid at school - but Jessica was off in her own little world.

"I wonder . . ." she began, but we were left ignorant of Jessica's thoughts because, at that moment, Alice Cullen appeared in the cafeteria doorway with a girl so beautiful that she couldn't possibly be real. The breath caught in my throat.

She looked like something out of a painting. The heavenly creation of a Renaissance master, perhaps. Only an angel could be so lovely. If this was Bella Swan, and it had to be, then she had definitely been named well. _Bella_ she was. I had never seen a more beautiful girl.

I watched dumbly as she smiled at Alice, the expression only increasing the loveliness of her heart-shaped face. Her skin was porcelain perfection, and I could see that her eyes were dark, but at this distance I couldn't identify the exact shade. Soft waves of mahogany hair tumbled down past Bella's shoulders and bounced against her back as Alice skipped toward her family's lunch table, dragging her cousin along behind her. And Bella was laughing. I couldn't hear the sound - I was too far away - but somehow I knew that it had to be beautiful. She was like something out of a dream. I pinched my leg through my jeans, half expecting to wake up, but I didn't.

"Wow," I heard Mike mutter through my stupor. "The Cullens have good genes."

"The others are adopted," I reminded him, my eyes never leaving Bella as she and Alice sat down at the lunch table. Emmett, Rosalie, and Jasper all looked up as they sat, and Emmett and Jasper laughed at something Alice had said. I watched as the angel leaned over to nudge Alice in the arm.

"Maybe it's something they're feeding them." Mike's eyes, like mine, and like a good portion of the other male eyes in the room, were still fixed on the Cullens' lunch table. "Whatever it is, they're doing something right. And it doesn't look like Bella came with a boyfriend. Maybe the rest of us will at least have a chance this time around."

Jessica frowned across the table at him. Apparently she didn't like us paying attention to other girls. It was then that I noticed the almost-bruises under Bella's eyes. She was definitely one of the strange and mysterious Cullens. My gaze darted back around the Cullens' lunch table. Rosalie was sitting tall and perfect in her chair, like a princess on her throne. Emmett was smiling across the table, apparently teasing Bella, his earlier displeasure forgotten. Jasper still looked . . . bothered . . . or . . . hungry . . . and Alice looked happy and concerned at the same time, with one arm slung around Bella's shoulders and her other hand joined with Jasper's on the tabletop. Bella looked . . . beautiful . . . perfect . . . and empty.

Empty? Where had that come from? I sighed and shook my head. There went my imagination again. I could practically hear my father's voice. _Junior, get your head out of the clouds and back on the ground, where it belongs._ Beside me I could hear Jessica complaining to Lauren that all guys ever paid attention to was a pretty face. Ironic, considering that all Jessica usually talked to her friends about was how cute this guy or that guy was. I shook my head and glanced up at the clock on the wall. Lunch would be over in another five minutes.

Angela, Mike, and I walked as a group to Biology. The faint mist from this morning had gone back to a steady drizzle, so there was a bottleneck at the door of building two as students removed their wet raincoats and hung them up on the coat rack just inside the door. Mr. Banner was a traditionalist. He had assigned seats in alphabetical order at the beginning of the year, so I ended my conversation with my friends, and we spread out to our respective seats in different parts of the room. I sat down at my empty lab table and started removing books from my backpack. There was no need to stick to my side of the tabletop. For the first half of the fall term, I had shared this table with Hannah Layton, but in the middle of October her father had been killed in a logging accident. After that, her mother had moved the entire family to California to live with Hannah's grandparents. Since then the table had been my own.

Glancing up, I saw Bella Swan enter the classroom. She was just as breathtakingly beautiful as she had been in the cafeteria. Mr. Banner was standing at the front of the room, preparing for the day's lecture. She spoke with him for a moment, offered him a slip to sign, and followed his gesture with her eyes as he pointed at me. Me? Why was he pointing to me? It occurred to me then that he wasn't pointing at me, but to the empty seat beside of me, the only unoccupied chair in the classroom. As she walked down the aisle between the rows of tables, I offered her a friendly smile and leaned over to move my notebook from her side of the table. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her come to an abrupt stop in the middle of the aisle. I looked up to see why.

Bella Swan was staring at me. Her dark eyes widened in shock for an instant, and then her body went rigid, as though she had tensed every muscle. She looked as though she were trying to decide whether to sit down or go running for the door. Then, suddenly, she was no longer just staring, but glaring at me in disgust, as though I were something undesirable that she had just found stuck to the bottom of her shoe. After a few seconds of that cold stare, she jerked her face away and closed her eyes as if she couldn't stand the sight of me. The revulsion was clear on her face.

I stared at her closed eyelids in confusion. Had I done something wrong? Jessica had said that she wasn't very friendly. Was this the way she was treating everyone today? No, not possible. I was the only one in the classroom she was staring daggers at. After a moment I jerked my eyes away from her face. It wouldn't do to have her catch me watching her this way. She was already upset by something I had done, and catching me staring at her would do nothing to improve the situation.

After a moment, she walked the rest of the way to the empty chair and sat down. She made no attempt at being friendly. She didn't even acknowledge my existence. She simply tilted her head so that her hair cascaded down over her shoulder, blocking her face from my view.

The most beautiful creature I'd ever seen was sitting beside me. And she hated me. And I had no clue why.

Before Mr. Banner had even begun to speak, she had already scooted her chair so far toward the edge of the table that she was practically sitting in the aisle. I kept my eyes to the front of the classroom as Mr. Banner began to review what we had discussed in class last Friday. What had I done that could have caused her to react to me in such a way? I glanced at her quickly out of the corner of my eye. Her notebook was out, and her right hand was occupied taking notes. Her left hand was clenched into a fist on the tabletop. Aside from the movement of her pencil across the page of her notebook, she was unnaturally still, her body straight and rigid in her seat. It was like sitting next to a statue.

I didn't understand her anger, if that's what she was feeling. Somehow, it didn't feel like anger. It didn't feel like disgust, either, but what else could it have been? I had seen her facial expressions, had judged her body language, but somehow, her reaction felt . . . off, like there was something missing. Remembering my earlier foolishness in the cafeteria, I shook my head. I needed to learn to keep my imagination in check before it got me into trouble. I glanced back up at the blackboard and copied down the words that had appeared there during my last few moments of daydreaming.

For the rest of the hour I watched her out of the corner of my eye and tried to pretend that I was listening intently to Mr. Banner's lecture. In truth I only caught about every other word. I jotted down notes on the finer points of cell walls, but cellular anatomy couldn't hold my interest. I was too distracted by Bella Swan to give the subject my undivided attention. Her face was still hidden behind the curtain of her hair, her hand still pressed into a fist, her body stiff and still. I didn't understand what I could possibly have done to make her hate me.

When the bell finally rang at the end of class, Bella was out of her chair like a shot and out the door before anyone else could even put away their notebooks. I stared at the empty doorway for a moment, trying to understand what had happened between us. By the time I put away my notes and made my way out of the classroom, Mike was waiting for me outside the door.

"So, what did you do to the new girl, anyway? Stab her with a pencil?"

"I don't know," I answered, genuinely bewildered. "I didn't even say a word to her. She acted like she hated me before she even sat down."

"You just lack that certain charm," Mike joked as he squared his shoulders. "Trade me lab partners, and I bet I'll have better luck."

I shook my head as we walked toward the gymnasium. At least it had stopped raining.

Ah, Gym class. The bane of my existence. There had been a time, a time not too long ago, in fact, when I hadn't minded this class, but all good things must come to an end. It was a volleyball day, thankfully, and volleyball I could handle. The sports that required me to run were the ones that I tried to avoid. I was no good to anyone when I was limping up and down the court from one end to the other.

I was just leaving the locker room after class when Coach Clapp waved to me from across the gymnasium. I changed direction so that I would meet him in the middle.

"Edward, can you do me a favor, and take these down to the main office?" He handed me a set of car keys. "I found them in the locker room after sixth hour. I can't get down to the office until I get all of the equipment put away for the day, and I'm sure someone will be missing them in a minute or two."

I shrugged. "Yes, sir. No problem." I took the keys and headed toward the far door of the gymnasium, avoiding walking past the trophy case. I fought against the flow of foot traffic as I walked toward the main office. Now that the school day had ended, most of the students were headed out of the buildings and into the parking lot, instead of the other way around. As I stepped through the office door, the sight that met my eyes stopped me in my tracks. There, at the counter in the middle of the room, stood Bella Swan. She was speaking with the receptionist, Ms. Cope.

"I'm sorry, Bella," I heard Ms. Cope tell her, "but this is the only way to arrange your schedule to fit you into the subjects you were studying in Alaska. Maybe you could talk to Mr. Banner? I'm sure he's had students who didn't want to do some of the labs right after lunch. Maybe he'd let you do them after school, instead?"

As the receptionist finished speaking, I saw Bella tense and begin to turn. I was fully expecting the anger in her gaze, but that didn't make it any easier when her burning stare met mine. Obviously, her feelings toward me hadn't changed in the past hour.

"Nevermind," she muttered to Ms. Cope through clenched teeth. "I'll figure something out." As she turned and hurried past me out the door, I caught a glimpse of her face one last time. The anger was gone. Now she looked close to tears. I stared after her as she retreated down the hallway outside.

Ms. Cope sighed after Bella, then smiled as she registered my presence. "What can I do for you, Edward?" she asked.

"Coach Clapp asked me to bring these down," I answered, handing her the keys across the counter. "Someone will be looking for them soon."

"I'm sure they will." She smiled again. "Thank you for bringing them by."

"You're welcome," I answered automatically as I turned and headed out the door toward my locker.

The parking lot was already partially cleared by the time I got to my car. I unlocked my door and glanced over toward the other end of the lot. The red truck was already gone. Behind me, I heard - or sensed - someone trying to sneak up on me.

"It's no use, Mike. I know you're there." I didn't bother to turn around. He did this to me at least once a week.

"How do you do that?" he asked, popping into my line of vision as he leaned against the rear door of my car. "It's like you have eyes in the back of your head or something."

"Radar," I said with a weak grin, glad to have a distraction from the enigma of Bella Swan. I nodded my head in the direction of the now absent truck. "So, did we ever figure out who the truck belongs to?"

"Yeah, actually. That's what I was coming to tell you. I watched them drive away in it about five minutes ago."

"Really?" I said as I leaned into my car to set my backpack in the passenger's seat. "Who was it?"

"Your girlfriend," he replied with a smirk.

"Huh? Oh," I said, catching on. It looked like my momentary distraction was over. "Seriously? A cop's daughter drives that? That thing had some serious restoration work done to it. Wherever they came from, the police department there must have paid better than the one in Forks does."

"Or they have part of the Cullen family fortune."

"Probably," I admitted as I tried to link this new clue to what little I knew about Bella Swan.

"Oh, well. Just thought I'd help you solve that mystery." Mike turned toward his Suburban. "I'll see you tomorrow, man."

"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow," I echoed back absently, but my mind was already elsewhere, wrapped in the mystery that was Bella Swan.


	2. PUZZLE (OPEN BOOK)

2. PUZZLE  
_(OPEN BOOK)_

I spent most of that night lying awake in bed staring up at the ceiling of my bedroom. Every time I closed my eyes, Bella's beautiful face danced behind my eyelids. Sometimes it was twisted with fury and disgust, and sometimes it was marred by unshed tears, but no matter what her expression, it pulled at me in a way that I couldn't explain. I didn't understand what I had done to anger or offend her. Or to make her cry. Why did her reaction bother me so? Seeing Jessica Stanley cry would hardly keep me awake at night, so why did Bella's tears leave me feeling this way? And what was it about her that made me think she was different? Different from everyone else at school, certainly - all of the Cullens were - but there was something about Bella that made her different from them, even. What was it?

After hours of tossing and turning, I finally convinced myself that this was all in my head. If Bella felt different, then that was just my overactive imagination running away with me again. And maybe she had been upset, but what reason did I have to believe that I was the cause? It was her first day in a new school, wasn't that reason enough for her to be distressed? Added to that, people were probably avoiding her now that they knew about her connection to the Cullens. Maybe she just needed someone to be friendly to her, someone to make her feel welcome, instead of making her feel like a freak.

Convinced that there was nothing for me to be bothered about and determined to make Bella feel more welcome in Forks, I rolled over to face the wall and managed to get a couple hours of sleep. When I awoke the next morning I couldn't remember any of my dreams, but somehow I was certain they had been about her.

As I pulled into my parking space at school, I found myself checking the other side of the lot for an ancient red truck. Nothing. Was she running late today? Could she have driven the truck in yesterday just to give herself some extra time before class started on her first day? Had she ridden to school with her cousins this morning? I considered the possibilities for a few moments, but the red truck didn't appear, so I headed into school.

I grew more and more eager as the morning passed. Lunch and the chance to see Bella again couldn't come fast enough. At the same time, I was unsettled by the thought of actually talking to her in Biology. She was beautiful enough to make any guy nervous, and I desperately hoped that her disgust from yesterday would not continue today. I told myself that the Cullens weren't hostile. They were aloof and distant, but never outright hateful, so there was no reason for me to believe that Bella would be, either.

I hurried to the cafeteria after my Spanish class only to discover that Bella was not there. Feeling disappointed, I ate my lunch in silence as I listened to my classmates discuss her absence – she was still the school's main news event. Several times I felt an odd sensation, as if someone at the Cullens' lunch table were watching me, but whenever I glanced in their direction I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmett were seated to themselves, just as they always were, and paying no attention to anyone else in the cafeteria, much less me.

When I entered Mr. Banner's classroom, I was forced to give up my final hope that Bella had been elsewhere during lunch. She wasn't there, either, but there was a strange suspicion taking root in the back of my mind. Did Bella's absence have something to do with me? Yesterday afternoon I had walked in on Bella trying to convince Ms. Cope to switch her out of our sixth hour Biology class. What if the reason Bella wanted to change her schedule was to get away from _me?_ Was it possible that she was absent today because she was trying to avoid me? I shook off the thought, blaming it on my imagination again, and took my seat.

The rest of the week fell into the same pattern. I awoke every morning firm in my decision to try to speak with Bella. Every morning passed by slowly as I waited to see if she had come to school that day. Every afternoon, she was notably absent from the Cullens' lunch table and Biology. People in the cafeteria stopped looking for her to walk in. Jessica found something new to gossip about. By Friday things had returned to the way they had been before Bella had ever set foot in Forks. I wondered if, perhaps, she had changed her mind about coming to Forks High School after all.

The weekend arrived, providing me with a welcome break from waiting for Bella to return. Saturday morning I rose, ate breakfast, and did some homework. I even managed to stay out of the living room until after my mother had gotten out of bed around lunchtime, but I couldn't have held out much longer.

Our living room, like the rest of the house, was small, but cozy. The mantle atop the fireplace was decorated with an old clock and a series of pictures—mostly school pictures that had been taken of me over the years. The reupholstered sofa was flanked by a pair of good reading lamps and angled toward the television at one side of the room. Bookcases covered the far wall, their shelves filled to overflowing with knickknacks, how-to guides on minor home repair, and my mother's beloved classics, but I didn't even register their presence. The most important thing in the room, to my eyes, at least, was the scarred upright piano that had been wedged into the corner.

. . . . .

When my mother and I first moved to Forks, the house next door was occupied by a retired widower named Bud Krawalski. Broad shouldered and muscled from years of working in the logging industry, Bud was, to my young eyes, a colossus and something akin to Chuck Norris, MacGyver, and Santa Claus all rolled into one. I idolized him, and after years of living alone, Bud was overjoyed to have an active seven-year-old boy around to help fill his empty hours. And Bud had filled an empty space in my own life. He taught me about cars and took me to baseball games every summer. We went on hikes in the woods, and he pointed out the different trees and taught me to identify the calls of some of the birds. We played catch in his front yard on sunny afternoons. He was the kind of grown-up friend every boy being raised by a single mother dreams of having.

I had been eight-years-old on the autumn afternoon when I'd first noticed the old piano in his living room and asked him about it. When he sat me down on the bench beside him and played a short, lively tune, I was mesmerized. _Now, son, don't ever let anybody tell you that real men don't play the piano_, he told me in his mock stern voice_. It's a great way to get girls._ By the time he'd moved to Florida some years later, Bud's old piano had already found its way out of his living room and into ours. No matter how many times my mother had offered, he had refused to accept so much as a penny for it.

There were several stacks of dog-eared sheet music sitting on top of the piano now, but I ignored them, opting instead to let my fingers dance along the keys as they pleased. As I played, the worries of the week left me, and I escaped into my own little world. When the song ended, my fingers led me into another, and then another, and before I knew it, my mother was calling my name into my ear, laughing at the intensity of my concentration.

"Hey, maestro, dinner's ready." My fingers paused on the keys. I blinked up at her in confusion.

"Huh?"

"Dinner is ready," she said again, trying to hide her smile.

"It is? Isn't it . . ." I trailed off as my stomach growled. I glanced up at the little clock on the mantle. "Oh." Reluctantly I closed the lid back over the keys and slid out from behind the piano. "Didn't you have to go run some errands?" I asked, still out of sorts.

My mother smiled at me indulgently. Conversations like this were a weekly ritual. "I did. I've been back for an hour and a half."

"Oh," I said again, trying to regain my bearings. I usually lost track of . . . everything when I sat down in front of a piano. Apparently, today was no exception.

"I forgot to ask you about Dr. Cullen's niece," my mother said after we were both seated at the kitchen table. Feeling the sudden need to do something with my hands, I decided to pass her the meatloaf.

"She was only there one day. She hasn't been back since. I haven't really talked to her yet." That was the truth. I may have imagined our first conversation a million times over the past week, but I had yet to speak a word to her.

"That's strange," she said thoughtfully. "I haven't worked with Dr. Cullen since Sunday night, so I haven't heard anything about her being out of school. I hope everything's okay."

"I thought she probably just had some things to take care of, loose ends left over from the move or something."

"Probably," she agreed. "So what's she like?" I lowered my eyes to my mashed potatoes.

"I didn't really see her that much. She's only in one of my classes. She seemed to be hanging around with Dr. Cullen's kids, mostly." When I lifted my gaze back to her face, I saw a speculative gleam in her eyes.

"What?" I asked suspiciously. My mother was up to something.

"Oh, I was just wondering . . ." I knew my mother, so I knew what was coming. "Is she pretty?"

"Mom," I muttered as I rolled my eyes toward the window.

"I was just wondering . . ." I couldn't help but notice the irony. My mother, who had hardly dated in the last decade, was worried about the lack of romance in my life.

"Her father came by the hospital yesterday," she said, thankfully changing the subject. "He wanted to introduce himself to everyone. He's very handsome, and he seems very nice, but I think some of the other nurses might have scared him." There was amusement in her green eyes but no interest. My mother seemed determined to live out her days as an old maid. "Ellen and Nancy nearly shoved their phone numbers into his pocket."

I smiled at that. "Ellen and Nancy try to shove their phone numbers into the pockets of every single guy who walks into that hospital . . . and probably some of the guys who get rolled in on gurneys, too." My mother laughed.

"Still, handsome new man in town, it'll stir things up for a little while. Carolyn said there's already been a bit of fuss down at the police station."

"Is somebody holding a grudge because they hired someone from out of town?" I asked as I speared a piece of meatloaf with my fork. "None of the deputies seemed to want the job. It's been open for months, and no one's jumped at it."

"No," my mother said, frowning, "it's nothing like that. Remember Jim Benson, the deputy from over on the reservation?" I nodded. "Well, the first day Chief Swan stopped by the station, Jim supposedly took one look at him, turned, and walked right out the door. He told the city council later that he wouldn't work for Chief Swan, no matter how much they paid him." I chewed the last piece of my meatloaf as I considered this.

"That's weird."

"Isn't it?" she paused a moment and lowered her eyebrows in thought. "When Dr. Cullen came to town, most of the people over in La Push swore they'd never come to the hospital again until he left, but no one could ever figure out why. Billy and Sue refused to talk about it. I guess Chief Swan must be tainted by association or something."

"Weird," I said again, as I added this new information to what little I knew about Bella Swan.

. . . . .

Monday dawned, cold but dry. The weather forecast had mentioned snow, but by the time I pulled into the school parking lot, there was still no sign of it. I parked in my usual spot and habitually glanced across the lot. Sitting right in the middle of the far row was a very familiar red truck. I stared at it for a few moments, excitement warring with apprehension, before heading into school.

Mr. Mason surprised us in English with a pop quiz on _Wuthering Heights._ I didn't think it was so bad, but I'd grown up with my mother watching various made-for-TV movies and mini-series versions of the story, so I knew it fairly well. Behind me, I could hear Mike groaning in agony. As I held the door of building three open for several girls after class, I discovered that the forecasted snow had finally arrived. Mike let out a happy yip as he stepped outside. "It's snowing!" He looked around excitedly, his gaze jumping from one person to another. He was probably trying to find someone he could pelt with a snowball.

I must have taken some sort of misstep on the wet sidewalk because I found myself taking an unexpected step to the right, an instinctive reaction to keep from losing my balance, apparently. I was grateful that I had, though, when a snowball sailed through the space where I had just been walking and smashed into the back of Mike's head. He turned to find the culprit, his eyes automatically landing on me because I was closest to him. I held up my hands to show that they were dry and empty.

"Not me, Mike." Turning, we saw Eric Yorkie walking in the opposite direction, away from his next class instead of toward it. A smile spread across Mike's features as he leaned over to scrape up a handful of slush. Fast getaways weren't my forte anymore, so I hurried off toward Government before the snowballs started flying.

I spent the rest of the morning alternately listening to my teachers and glancing out the windows at the falling snow. The second hands on all of the classroom clocks seemed to be moving in reverse. When lunch finally arrived, there were five people seated at the Cullens' table. I rushed through the lunch line, paying no attention to what I bought, and hurried to my regular table. Mike was busy complaining to Jessica about the quiz in English as I took my seat, so I risked a glance across the room.

Bella was sitting in the same seat beside Alice that she had used a week ago. Both she and Alice were laughing at something that Emmett was doing, but I didn't bother to look to see what. My eyes were too full of Bella. She was absolutely breathtaking. Something about her coloring seemed different today, made her seem a bit more approachable. She was wearing a dark jacket over a lacy white top that made me think of some half-remembered dream from the night before. I watched as Alice leaned over to whisper something in Bella's ear. A movement on the other side of the table caught my attention, and I refocused my eyes to find Emmett watching me. Realizing that I'd been caught in the act, I turned my head toward the first voice I heard at my table. Mike was trying to gather troops for a snowball fight in the parking lot after school. I glanced back down at my tray and picked at my food with my fork.

"Hey," Mike nudged me. "The new girl's looking over here." I couldn't stop my eyes from darting up to check, and, sure enough, Bella was watching me across the cafeteria. Our eyes met for a second or two, and then she looked away, as though she had merely been glancing in my general direction and hadn't realized immediately that I was looking back. But I knew her eyes had been focused on me.

"Are you two going to make eyes at each other until lunch is over?" Mike asked. I frowned down at my lunch tray and ignored him. Mike went back to planning the snowball fight to end all snowball fights while I studied my grilled cheese sandwich.

Bella's expression had been different today. It had been friendly, curious, and missing every trace of the derision I had seen in her eyes a week ago. Part of me wanted to look one more time, to see if I would catch her glancing my way again, but I didn't want to push my luck.

As lunch ended, Mike, Angela, and I stepped out into a steady rainfall. Mike groaned his second groan of the day at the realization that his snowball fight would have to be postponed until a later date. Angela and I looked at each other and shrugged.

Walking through the door of the classroom, I was relieved to see that Bella hadn't arrived yet. I still had a few moments to plan what to say. I had rehearsed this scene in my head at least a hundred times over the past week, but now, with the moment at hand, I couldn't decide what to do. Part of me was excited by the chance to speak to Bella, to see if she had forgiven me for whatever I had done wrong last week, but another part cautioned me to wait for her to make the first move. I was still weighing the two options against each other when I took my seat.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bella hesitate just outside the door and take a deep breath, as though steeling herself for what was to come. Would today be more of the same, after all? She walked down the aisle slowly, pausing at the edge of the table, but she didn't sit down. I pretended to read over my notes as I waited for her to move, but she just stood there. A tense moment passed before I decided to risk a glance in her direction.

She was watching me, but the hatred that had filled her eyes before was gone. I held back a sigh of relief. She smiled faintly.

"Hello," she said in a voice as clear and as beautiful as a bell.

"Hello," I responded carefully. I watched as she sat her books down on the table and slid gracefully into her chair. I noticed then that something else about her had changed. Her eyes were no longer dark. They were now an unusual light golden brown color that reminded me of honey. Had she gotten contact lenses? She didn't look like she was wearing any.

"My name is Bella Swan. You must be Edward Masen." I nodded, still trying to solve the puzzle of her eyes. She must have misinterpreted my confusion because she immediately tried to explain herself. "My cousin, Alice, made me memorize last year's annual."

"Oh," I responded, unsure of what to say now that she was being friendly. A frown crossed her angelic face, and I noticed that her upper lip was slightly fuller than the lower one. It didn't detract from her beauty in the least.

"I'd like to apologize for last Monday," she began slowly. "The first day at a new school can be rather difficult."

I had spent a week thinking of things to say to her, planning out different scenarios, but now, sitting here beside her with those golden eyes trained on my face, I couldn't remember a single word. "It's okay," I told her. "Don't worry about it."

Mr. Banner called class to order at that moment, and I turned my attention to the front of the room. Today was a lab day, and Mr. Banner had already placed a microscope and a box of slides on each table. The slides contained samples of onion root tip cells. Our assignment was to identify the phase of mitosis represented in each of the slides. He told us to begin, and I glanced hesitantly across the table to my lab partner.

"Ladies first?" I offered, trying to be friendly.

"Thank you." Without looking at me, she placed the first slide under the microscope and made a couple of minor adjustments. "Prophase," she announced confidently after only a momentary glance into the eyepiece. She lifted her pencil and wrote something in her notes.

"Can I see?" I asked. She pushed the microscope across the table to me carefully without looking up, and I peered down through the viewer. From what I remembered from last week's textbook reading, I had to agree. "Prophase," I said, writing the answer on the lab sheet.

I exchanged the first slide for the second and studied it for a moment, more confident this time when I answered. "Anaphase."

"May I?" she asked, reaching for the microscope at the same moment that I turned it toward her. Our fingers brushed for an instant, and we both jerked our hands away from the contact. Her eyes flickered toward my face, then slid away. A flash of some unidentifiable emotion crossed her features and was gone just as quickly. She reached out to pull the microscope to her end of the table. "Sorry," she muttered. I watched, puzzled, as Bella glanced down through the eyepiece. Her hand had been as cold as ice, but it was the strange jolt of electricity that had sizzled out of her fingertips and up my arm that had made me pull my hand back. She had pulled her hand away, as well, I noted. I wondered if she had felt it, too.

"Anaphase," she agreed calmly, apparently unaffected. She must not have noticed anything. Feeling somewhat disappointed, I added the answer to the lab sheet.

I watched as she removed the second slide from the microscope and reached for the third. There was something about her that I just couldn't put my finger on. Something about her just didn't make sense. Last week in class she had hated me. In the office, later that afternoon, she'd been upset enough by something, possibly her inability to get out of a class with me, that she'd been on the verge of tears. Just a few moments ago she had walked into class and calmly introduced herself, but now she wouldn't even look at me, and she seemed repulsed by the touch of my hand. I considered this for a moment. Was it possible that Bella was just painfully shy?

"Interphase," she announced after one quick glance. "Would you like to check it?" she asked when I still hadn't responded a moment later. She lifted her eyes to meet mine. She didn't seem like she was hesitant to make eye contact with me now, and she didn't have her head ducked down the way shy people usually did, so my shyness theory was out. It had been the only logical explanation I'd been able to come up with.

"No, I believe you," I said as I logged the answer. I gave her a hesitant smile, curious to see her reaction. Bella looked away calmly without acknowledging me. She acted as though she hadn't seen.

The lab went quickly after that, leaving us with nothing to do when we finished well ahead of the rest of the class. Bella was quiet again, so I glanced around the classroom to see if anyone else had finished, but everyone else was still peering into their microscopes or arguing with their lab partners over the slides. One person even had their textbook open under the lab table, obviously hoping that Mr. Banner wouldn't notice. When I glanced back at Bella she was sitting straight and rigid in her chair again, just as she had a week before. Her hands were clenched into fists in her lap, and her face was turned toward the aisle. I was about to ask her if she was feeling okay when Mr. Banner stopped by the table to see why we weren't working.

"Finished already?" he asked as he looked over our answers. He frowned. "Which one of you did this?" he asked after a moment.

"We both did," Bella answered, apparently recovered from whatever was wrong.

"Well, the answers are all correct. Have you done this lab before?" he asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Yes, sir," she admitted. "We did it at my old school." He considered that for a moment.

"Well," he said as he glanced back and forth between the two of us, "good job to the both of you. Just sit tight while everyone else catches up." Silence returned to our table as he left to monitor the progress of the rest of the class. I looked down at the lab sheet, watching Bella out of the corner of my eye. Aside from the fact that Bella was very good at identifying the phases of mitosis and had cold hands, I wasn't really learning much about her, and I was baffled by her strange behavior. I turned my pencil in my hands, studying it from all angles as I considered. She'd said herself that switching schools was difficult. Maybe she was just having trouble adjusting. Somehow, the idea disturbed me. Maybe she just needed a friend.

"So," I began, "how do you like Forks?"

Bella turned her face to mine, her eyes widening slightly in what I assumed was surprise. My choice of conversation topic wasn't exactly unusual, so she couldn't have been surprised by what I was saying. More likely she was surprised that I was speaking to her at all.

"It seems okay," she said. Her eyes studied my face for the first time, moving across it like she was looking for something. She seemed puzzled.

I remembered what I had overheard Ms. Cope saying in the office the previous week. The weather seemed like a safe topic. "You must be used to snow," I began. "You moved down from Alaska, right?"

"Yes, that's correct." Her eyes stopped moving across my face and settled on mine. "There's a lot of snow in Alaska this time of year, but in the summer it's much more pleasant." She frowned, an oddly strained expression crossing her features, and looked away. Was she homesick? I was still trying to decide what else to say to her when she spoke again.

"Your mother is Lizzie—Elizabeth Masen, correct?" she asked as she turned back to face me. I nodded, not quite sure how she would know my mother's name. "She's a nurse at the hospital." I nodded again, though it hadn't been a question. "Dr. Carlisle Cullen is my uncle. He mentioned her the other day when he was telling me about some of the people he worked with."

"Oh," I said as I searched her features. I was trying to get some sense of what she was feeling, but I couldn't identify a single emotion. It only whetted my curiosity about her.

"Do you have any other family here, anyone else you care for?" Later that evening, as I ran through the conversation in my head, it would occur to me how strangely she had phrased her question, but now I was too busy trying to figure her out to notice.

I shook my head. "Just Mom and me. My parents are divorced. My father still lives in Phoenix." Bella frowned at my answer, her eyes studying mine all the while.

"Phoenix is a long way from here," Bella said. She frowned again, but this frown was different somehow. "And not very much like Forks, either." She glanced out the windows at the falling rain. "Do you miss it?" she asked after a moment.

I shook my head again. "I don't really remember it, aside from visiting. My parents split when I was a baby, and Mom and I moved to Seattle. She found the job at the hospital here in Forks a couple of years later when she graduated from nursing school. This is the only weather I've ever known." I glanced out the windows. "It's not so bad, once you get used to it. The sun may not shine very often, but everything here's so green and . . ." I trailed off, searching for the right word, "alive." Bella turned to face the front of the classroom and fell silent.

"I'm sorry," I said. Bella turned her face back toward me and gave me a questioning look. "It must be tough, moving away from home." She watched me for a moment, then shook her head.

"No, not really. I wanted to come here. I missed my family."

I remembered the way she and Alice had entered the cafeteria on her first day. "You and your cousins must be close." Bella nodded.

"We are," she said simply.

I watched her face as I made a mental list of what I had learned so far. Her family was very important to her, and she didn't seem to like rain . . . or snow. She didn't seem to miss winter in Alaska, either, and she had the most unusual eyes I had ever seen. I focused on them as I studied her face. I didn't realize I was staring until she frowned.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Nothing. I just . . . your eyes are such an unusual color. I thought they were darker last week." She shrugged and looked away again.

"They look darker sometimes. I think it depends on the lighting . . . and what I'm wearing."

I started to ask her what part of Alaska she had lived in, but Mr. Banner interrupted us at that moment to call the class's attention to the front of the room. I watched as he reviewed the lab on the overhead projector and made sideways glances at Bella out of the corner of my eye. She appeared to be listening attentively. I hoped to catch a word or two with her after class, but when the bell rang, she was up out of her seat and out through the door before I could even stand.

"Chased off the new girl again?" Mike asked as we headed out the door into the rain. "You two seemed like you had a nice little talk," he said, raising an eyebrow in speculation. "Learn anything interesting?"

"Not really," I frowned. "Apparently she's good at Biology, though." Mike widened his eyes, intentionally misunderstanding me. I glared at him. "Not a word, Newton," I warned him as we ducked though the doors of the gymnasium. "You know what I mean."

The rain had become a misting sprinkle by the time I got out of Gym. I hurried to my car, hoping to catch another glimpse of Bella before she left. I wasn't completely easy until I saw the red truck still parked along the far end of the lot. Bella was standing beside the driver's side door talking to Alice. I slowed my walk a bit and watched them furtively as I made my way to the Volvo. They stopped talking once, and both of their heads turned in my direction, but my face was angled down so I pretended to be watching my feet until they went back to their conversation. I got into my car and spent a few more moments pretending to look for something in my backpack. I watched as Alice walked back across the lot to Rosalie's BMW and got in. I didn't expect Bella to stand around in the cold rain alone for very long, so I started my car and pulled out of my parking space. As I drove toward the parking lot exit, I glanced back in my rear view mirror just once. Bella Swan was still standing beside of her truck in the rain, but her face was turned toward me, watching me as I drove away.


	3. IMPOSSIBLE (PHENOMENON)

3. IMPOSSIBLE  
_(PHENOMENON)_

Though the temperature dropped that night, the clouds continued to dispense rain, stubbornly refusing to change over to snow until just before dawn. By the time the sun came up the next morning, a layer of ice coated everything. As I studied the landscape outside of my bedroom window, I tried not to think about another icy morning not quite a year before. My ankle throbbed at the memory.

I showered quickly and ate my breakfast standing up, not taking the time to sit down. I told myself that I needed to hurry in order to allow extra time to get to school on the slippery roads, but the real reason for my urgency was my eagerness to see Bella. I hoped I could talk to her again in Biology. There were so many things I wanted to ask her.

Outside, I discovered that the sidewalk and driveway weren't quite as bad as I'd feared. Driving cautiously, I arrived safely at school to discover that the parking lot was just as icy as the rest of Forks. I glared out at the pavement for a moment and prayed that I wouldn't have a repeat of last year.

As I climbed carefully out of my car, I scanned the lot for Bella's truck, smiling to myself when I saw it parked in what had become its usual spot. I glanced toward the school, spotting Bella standing in the next row of cars with her cousins. As usual, they were clustered in a group, facing each other and paying no attention to anyone else . . . except for Bella; Bella was watching me.

I forced myself to look away. Part of me wanted to stand there and gaze back at her. She was beautiful, just as she always was, but there was something else, something enigmatic and indescribable that fascinated me about her. If I could stand here and study her all day long maybe I could figure it out, but I didn't want to make a fool of myself, so I turned and made my way cautiously toward the school. I chastised myself as I walked. Why was I so obsessed with Bella anyway? Why did I feel the need to know everything about her? No matter how beautiful or mysterious she was, she was just an ordinary teenage girl, not an alien from outer space. What secret could she possibly be hiding?

As I drew even with the Cullens, I couldn't stop myself from glancing over in Bella's direction one more time. She was still standing with her cousins beside Rosalie's car, but she was staring down at the pavement now, her lower lip clamped between her perfect teeth. She seemed troubled by something. I wished I knew what it was.

A strange squealing sound intruded on my thoughts, and I paused mid-step, trying to understand the sudden sense of panic that clawed at my stomach with icy fingers. As the noise grew louder, my brain suddenly identified it as the sound of tires squealing as they skidded across frozen asphalt. I jerked my head up to see Tyler Crowley's van sliding across the parking lot, clearly out of control. It was headed right toward me. There was no time to get away, no time for me to react. Even if the lot had been clear and dry, I would never have been able to get out of the way in time. It was going to hit me.

They always say that your life flashes before your eyes when you're about to die, but I didn't see a bit of it. I was numb, my brain unable to comprehend anything beyond the sight of the blue van sliding toward me. Suddenly everything seemed to blur. Something that felt like a brick wall knocked me to the ground, leaving me breathless from the impact. I opened my eyes dully to find myself lying on the pavement between a dented green Explorer and an ancient gray Monte Carlo. Mahogany curls flew through the air in front of my face, and I realized that I wasn't alone. I watched as Tyler's van slammed into the rear corner of the Explorer, sending it sliding toward the Monte Carlo at an angle. As it made contact with the gray car, the Explorer continued to slide sideways. The space I was lying in was narrowing, closing in on itself like the blades on a pair of scissors.

As I watched this horror unfold, some tiny, still-functioning corner of my brain identified my companion. Bella was crouched in front of me, facing the oncoming van. She spread out her arms, one hand braced just behind the Monte Carlo's driver's side door, the other on the front passenger's side door of the Explorer. There was a horrible screeching noise, the sound of crunching metal and shattering glass, and then silence. I blinked, and when my eyes reopened Bella wasn't where she'd been just a heartbeat before. I knew I hadn't blacked out, but she was no longer in front of me, braced between the cars; she was lying on the pavement beside me, instead. She sat up carefully, her eyes skimming over every inch of my body, from the top of my head to the soles of my shoes. I stared up at her for a moment in confusion, waiting for the world to right itself again. There was nothing but an eerie silence, and then came the distant sounds of yelling as the other people in the parking lot processed what had just happened.

"Are you all right?" Bella asked, her ocher eyes wide.

"Yeah, I think so," I muttered, not sure of anything except that her hands were on my chest now; she didn't seem to want me to move. I tried to collect my thoughts enough to take stock of myself. There was a slight throbbing above my right ear. "I think I hit my head."

"I think so, too."

I started moving my limbs, checking for injuries. I frowned as I rotated my left foot. The ankle felt tender. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

"You shouldn't move. You might be injured." She watched me warily for a moment, frowning when I started to push myself up. I waved her away.

"No, I'm just going to sit up, I promise." She watched me prop my back against the door of the Explorer, then scooted away from me to rest against the Monte Carlo. There was a dent there, right beside her head, in the spot where she had placed her hand. I turned to study the side of the Explorer. There was a dent there, too. I shook my head, trying to clear it.

"You pushed me out of the way." I had managed to put that much together, at least.

She nodded. "I did."

The pieces were starting to come together, but they didn't make any sense. Where had she come from? How had she pushed me out of the way when she'd been standing with her cousins? Had I really seen her hold two cars apart? Impossible . . .

In my peripheral vision I noticed the first brave faces peering between the cars to look for survivors. Suddenly there were voices everywhere, people running from every direction as the rest of the witnesses made it across the lot to the scene of the accident. Someone yelled that they were calling 911. Someone else went running to get the school nurse. A couple of people hurried to the driver's side of Tyler's van to help him out. I sat in the middle of the chaos holding my lightly throbbing head and staring at Bella.

"You pushed me out of the way?" I said again, but this time it was a question. We'd already established that much, but nothing made sense.

"Yes," she answered patiently. She was still watching me, looking for signs of injury, I assumed.

"How? You were standing over by Rosalie's car."

"No, I wasn't," she said, gently shaking her head. "I was walking in to school. I was right behind of you."

That didn't make any sense either. "But . . . I saw you standing beside Rosalie's car right before it happened."

A frown touched her lips. "If that were the case, then how could I have pushed you out of the way?" she asked.

"I don't . . . know . . ." I shook my head. Was I going crazy? I turned toward the sound of voices as several people began to discuss how to move the vehicles back so that the EMTs could get to us.

"Edward?" I turned back to face her at the sound of my name. "I need to ask you a favor," she said in a hurried whisper. Her face was twisted into an odd expression that I couldn't quite read. "Please don't tell anyone that I pushed you out of the way. Ever since my mother died, my father has been very protective. If he thinks that I put myself in more danger than I needed to, he'll be terrified." She watched me with wide eyes. "You can tell them that you saved me. You can be the hero – I don't care. Just make sure that my father doesn't have anything to worry about, okay?" I stared at her for a moment, then nodded dumbly.

Within minutes, two ambulances had arrived. It took several people to push the van out of the way and shift the Explorer over so that everyone could get to us. While the EMTs pulled out the stretchers, I caught sight of a police cruiser parking behind the ambulances. Curious, I watched as Forks's newest police chief emerged from the car and took in the scene with a sweeping glance. He stood about six feet tall. His hair was the same brown shade as Bella's and topped with a cream-colored Stetson that looked like something out of a country music video. He was calm and composed as he walked toward the ambulances, a startling contrast to the pandemonium surrounding us. He looked younger than I would have expected, barely old enough to have a seventeen-year-old daughter. Seeing her father walking toward us, Bella whispered "thank you" and climbed out from between the cars to meet him.

Chief Swan didn't react the way most parents would in a similar situation. He didn't run toward Bella to check her over for scrapes or bruises. He simply continued toward her at the same sedate pace. When they met, they hugged briefly, then pulled apart, though Chief Swan kept one arm around his daughter's shoulders. "So, what happened?" I heard him ask before Brett Warner, the EMT, distracted me by placing a brace around my neck. By the time I could look back in their direction, Chief Swan had turned his back to me, blocking Bella from view. The other Cullens and Hales were clustered around them. Rosalie looked furious. Emmett looked annoyed. None of them seemed at all concerned about Bella. They appeared to be talking, but their voices were low, and I couldn't hear any of their conversation.

"We're just going to take you in and make sure everything's okay," Brett told me as he motioned for the stretcher. I sighed. As many X-rays as I'd had in the last few years, I was amazed that I didn't glow in the dark.

As I was unloaded at the hospital, I saw Bella and her father exiting a police cruiser parked in the visitor's lot and entering through the doctor's office entrance. They must have followed the ambulances in.

Brett wheeled me into the emergency room. It was just as I remembered it – a long row of beds separated by privacy curtains that no one bothered to close very often. So far, I appeared to be the first patient of the day. Penny Hamilton, who had worked here longer than I'd lived in Forks, came bustling around the corner. She clucked her tongue at me and strapped a blood pressure cuff over my arm.

"Edward, Edward," she chastised me familiarly. "I thought you'd had enough of this place." She stuck a thermometer under my tongue.

"Hi, Penny," I mumbled around the thermometer. "Car accidents don't normally cause fevers, you know."

Penny raised one eyebrow. "You cannot distract me from my duties, young man," she said, "and don't try to talk with that thermometer in your mouth." Arguing with Penny would get me nowhere, so I gave up and waited for my mother to arrive. I didn't have to wait long. In less than a minute she came flying around the corner and into the emergency room.

"Edward? Edward! What happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt?" she cried frantically. She was checking my limbs, looking as though she expected to find some of them missing. Here in the emergency room, she was usually known as "Level-Headed Lizzie." She could handle the most gruesome, dramatic accidents with more aplomb than some of the doctors on staff_, _but I knew from experience that Lizzie wasn't so level-headed when her son was brought in.

"I'm fine, Mom. Everyone's just over-reacting." I tried to sound bored. If I acted like nothing had happened, maybe my mother would calm down sooner.

"Don't talk with that thermometer in your mouth," Penny said again.

"What happened?" my mother repeated, running her hands over my arms. "Did you hit your head? Did you break anything?"

I opened my mouth to answer her, but Penny grunted and pointed at the thermometer.

I spent the next several moments with my mother firing questions at me while Penny glared at me over the top of her glasses to make sure I didn't answer. I was saved when they wheeled Tyler Crowley to the bed beside of me. My mother took one look at the bloody bandages on his head and snapped back into nurse mode. She gave my hand one brief squeeze and hurried over to check on him. Penny withdrew the thermometer and followed her to Tyler's bedside.

"Edward, I am so sorry!" Tyler exclaimed when he looked over and saw me.

I tried to shrug at him, but discovered that it was nearly impossible while I was wearing the neck brace. "I'm okay. They just have to make a big deal about me because Mom works here." My mother began to remove a strip of bloody bandage from the side of his face.

"Pay no attention to him," she told Tyler seriously, but the tiny smile tugging at one corner of her mouth gave her away. Apparently she'd decided that I would live.

I winced sympathetically as my mother removed the rest of the bandage, exposing a patch of tiny cuts and scratches along Tyler's face and left cheek.

"Are you okay?" I asked, but Tyler ignored me.

"Man, I thought I was going to kill you! I hit the ice wrong, and—" He stopped mid-sentence and flinched as my mother dabbed something on his cuts.

He was already in enough pain. I didn't want him to suffer any more than he already was, so I tried to play it down. "Don't worry. We're both fine." I shrugged lightly – using my arms to convey the gesture this time - to show that there were no hard feelings. "It could happen to anyone," I added, hoping to ease his guilt.

Tyler's eyes clouded over with confusion. "What do you mean _both_? Was someone else there?" His eyes widened.

"Bella was with me." I saw my mother raise her eyebrows.

"Who?" Tyler asked. Bella had been big news a week ago. Maybe Tyler had suffered more head trauma than I'd thought.

"Bella Swan. The new girl. She was walking behind me, and we dived between those two cars." Bella had asked me not to tell the truth, but I didn't want to lie, either. This was the best compromise I could come up with at the moment.

"Really? I didn't even see her . . . Is she okay?" he squeaked out. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned Bella. He looked even worse now than he had a moment before.

"I think so. I don't think she even got a scratch. She's around here somewhere. I saw her getting out of the police cruiser with her father while they were unloading me."

They wheeled me to X-ray then to check for damage. When I told them that my ankle was a little tender, they insisted on X-raying it, as well. The X-rays came back clean, so they allowed me to remove the neck brace, but they wouldn't release me until I'd seen a doctor. They brought me back to the emergency room and left me next to Tyler, who kept talking about how fast it had all happened. Accidents did happen fast, that I knew, but after hearing him apologize for the tenth time, I was about to ask if I could have a private room.

I closed my eyes and tried to block out Tyler's babbling by running through the accident in my head again. It just didn't make sense, and Bella's odd request didn't add up either. She had asked me to lie for her to spare her father from extra worry, but she had still been in an accident, either way. He hadn't seemed very concerned about her being injured, either - none of the Cullens had - so if her father wasn't going to worry, and if her family wasn't going to worry, then why didn't she want me to tell the truth? Maybe it wasn't her father that she was trying to hide the truth from. Maybe she was trying to hide it from everyone else. I considered that for a moment.

"Hi," came a melodious, yet unexpected voice. I jumped slightly, surprised, and opened my eyes. Bella stood at the foot of the bed, looking just as lovely as ever. My own personal guardian angel. Strange, I hadn't heard her walk up. People usually didn't sneak up on me that way.

"Bella, I'm really sorry-" Tyler began, but she silenced him with a look.

"Don't worry about it, okay?" she said. Her voice was kind, but there was something about the look she gave him that discouraged arguing. Tyler nodded dumbly.

"So, what did they say?" she asked me.

"There's no permanent damage, but they won't let me leave until someone looks at my ankle. Why aren't you stuck in one of these beds like we are?"

She smiled. "I have connections."

"So do I, but they didn't do me any good." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chief Swan coming around the corner at the far end of the room. His Stetson was off now, I noted, and he was carrying it in one hand. He came over to stand beside Bella and eyed me appraisingly.

"So this is the young man who saved your life." It wasn't a question. He was still studying me.

"It is," Bella answered, but the lie sounded hideous to my ears. I glanced toward Tyler's bed. Everyone else in the room was busy. No one would overhear anything we said. I made a split-second decision and hoped that Bella would forgive me.

"Actually, sir, that's not exactly true. Your daughter saved mine."

Chief Swan's eyes narrowed slightly and he studied me for another moment. I didn't know what he was looking for, but he didn't seem upset by my words. It felt more like he was measuring me, trying to decide what to think of me. He turned to his daughter. "That so, Bells?"

"Yes," she admitted. I was expecting her to be angry with me again, but her face was blank. Without any facial expression to gauge her mood, I couldn't tell if she was upset with me for telling her father the truth or if she even cared. In fact, she didn't seem to be feeling anything at all. "I didn't want to worry you, Dad, and I thought Edward would prefer to play the hero. Most men would rather rescue the girl than admit to being rescued by one."

I turned my head to see Dr. Cullen making his way across the room toward us. "It was nice to meet you," Chief Swan said as he excused himself back around the corner.

"You, too," I said as I watched him walk away. Something about the way he'd looked at me made me feel like one of the slides we used in Biology.

"Hello there, Edward," Dr. Cullen said. "I haven't seen you around here in a while. How are you feeling?" Bella stepped back against the opposite wall to give us some privacy.

"I'm okay," I answered. He walked to the lightboard behind me to examine my X-rays. "I think I twisted my ankle a little when I went down, but it's not broken." I frowned. "Trust me, I know what broken feels like."

He finished his study of the X-rays and turned back to me. "Does your head hurt? Bella said you hit it pretty hard."

Bella had already spoken with Dr. Cullen about the details of my injuries? Was she concerned about me? Or was there something else going on?

He probed his fingers lightly through my hair, pausing when he found a lump on my scalp. "Well, there's something." I winced. "Tender?" he asked.

"A little bit, but it doesn't hurt as much as it did a little while ago. I don't think I hit it very hard. Pavement just isn't very soft." He nodded, then moved down to the other end of my bed. Lifting my foot, he pushed the sock down to the arch of my foot and studied my ankle. He ran his fingers along the joint, his fingertips brushing along the scars. I fought back a shiver. Like all doctors, Dr. Cullen's hands were always cold. He rotated the joint carefully, watching my face for a reaction. "There's a little bit of swelling. Does it hurt?" he asked when I didn't wince.

I shook my head. "It's just a little sore. I've gotten worse in Gym." He pushed my sock back in place and set my foot back down on the mattress.

"I pulled a few strings. We'll be okay here without your mother for the rest of the day, so I'm sending you home with her. She'll know what to look for if there's any trouble with that bump on your head."

I frowned. "No school, huh?" There went my chance to talk to Bella in Biology.

"No, you may have quite a headache in an hour or so, and I don't want you walking around on that ankle, just in case. I put too many hours of work into it." I groaned inwardly. I hated feeling like an invalid.

"Tylenol for the pain. Ice for the swelling," he told me.

"Yes, sir. I know the drill," I said. I swung my right leg over the side of the bed and started looking around for my left shoe. I'd seen them carrying it in when we came back from X-ray, but I didn't know where they'd put it.

"It sounds like you were very lucky," he told me as he signed off on my charts.

"I was lucky that Bella was walking right behind me," I answered, watching his face for a reaction. "But I don't think she likes being a hero. She told me that I could tell everyone that _I_ pushed _her_ out of the way."

"Well, if you both feel more comfortable with that version of events, I'm sure she wouldn't mind," Dr. Cullen agreed as he studied the papers in front of him. He didn't seem unwilling to meet my eyes, but there was something in his expression when he looked at me that made me feel like he was hiding something. "You take care of that ankle for me, okay, Edward?" I nodded, and he moved down the row to check on Tyler. Something about the way he'd said _"that version of events"_ stuck with me. I couldn't help feeling that whatever was going on here, Dr. Cullen was in on it.

"I'm afraid that _you'll_ have to stay with us just a little bit longer," I heard him say to Tyler. Bella stepped back toward me from her spot by the wall. I hopped down from the bed, making sure that most of my weight landed on my right foot, and limped over to her.

"Can I talk to you for a sec?" I glanced around at the room's other occupants. "Alone."

"Okay," she said, and I followed her back around the corner into the empty hallway. "What is it?" she asked once we were out of earshot of everyone else.

"What exactly happened in the parking lot?"

"I pushed you out of the way, Edward. I've already told you that I wouldn't mind if you'd rather say it happened the other way around. I'll understand."

I shook my head. "I don't care who rescued who. Well, I do. I mean, you saved my life. Thank you."

She inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment. "You're welcome."

"But there's no point in lying about what happened. Your father didn't seem too upset about it." She studied me for a moment, then glanced away.

"I guess not," she admitted. Maybe I was right about her trying to hide the truth about what had happened, which made me wonder what else she was trying to hide. I watched her for a moment, trying to decide where to begin. If she was trying to hide something, an accusation would get me nowhere. It would only make her defensive. Maybe I could find a way to coax an explanation out of her instead.

"I still don't understand what happened," I began, careful to keep my voice calm and even. "You keep saying that you were right beside me, but I saw you standing beside Rosalie's car just a few seconds before Tyler lost control of the van. Tyler didn't see you beside of me, either." I shook my head as I spoke, trying to make the pieces fit, but they refused to go together.

"Tyler's probably in shock right now. And it's hard to catch every little detail when you're in the middle of an accident. I can understand him not seeing me."

I frowned. "The weird thing is, I could swear that I saw you hold those two cars apart – that's why we weren't crushed between them - but that's impossible, isn't it?"

Bella shook her head. "You've been through a lot today. It all happened very quickly, and you're confused about what you believe you saw."

"There are dents on both of the cars , too, where your hands were, but you don't even have a bruise on you." I lowered my eyebrows, trying to appear confused. It wasn't hard. I really _was_ confused.

"Edward," Bella said my name with a small sigh. It reminded me of the way my mother had sometimes spoken to me when I was a child, when she was trying to appear calmer and more patient than she was feeling. "Listen to yourself, listen to what you're saying. You're right. It _is_ impossible."

I'd been expecting her denial, but I wasn't ready to give up yet. "Then what really did happen?" I asked. "I know you didn't just push me out of the way . . . I saw you."

Her eyes narrowed slightly at my words, but I didn't know the outburst was coming until it was too late to smooth it over. "So you're telling me that you think I pushed two cars apart with my bare hands?" she asked incredulously. I nodded slowly, caught off guard by her abrupt mood change. "If you tell anyone that, they'll _know_ you hit your head."

"I wasn't going to tell anyone that." I shook my head. "I know it sounds crazy, but I know what I saw. I just don't understand it. Please tell me what really happened out there."

She spoke slowly, emphasizing every word that she pushed out from between her teeth. "The truth of the matter is that you hit your head, Edward." I watched her for a moment, trying to find the right approach. This one obviously wasn't going to work. I sighed, out of ideas for the moment.

"Why don't you want to tell me the truth?" I finally asked.

Her jaw locked stubbornly. "Why won't you accept that I _am_ telling you the truth?"

"Because I know you're not." I answered simply. Now that I _knew_ she was hiding something, I couldn't let it go. Something in me just had to know what it was.

"Well this is the only explanation you're going to get." Her anger from last week was back, only this time I knew why she was angry. This time, I had seen something that I wasn't supposed to see. I had touched on some secret that Bella wasn't willing to share.

"Why did you do it?" I asked, thinking aloud. "If you're so worried about people finding out that you saved me, then why did you even bother?"

She studied me for a moment. I watched her eyes soften slightly for an instant, and then she looked away.

"Because I had to," she whispered. Then she turned and walked away.

I watched her graceful escape down the hallway, then hobbled back into the emergency room. My mother was standing beside my bed, my left shoe in one hand and her purse over her shoulder as she waited to take me home. Dr. Cullen was still studying Tyler's face.

When I limped back out through the emergency room doors with my mother, we were nearly mobbed by students. Apparently everyone had used this as an excuse to take the day off of school. As we fought our way toward the door, I tried to reassure Mike and Jessica that I was okay, but I wasn't giving them my full attention. Across the room, I watched as Bella and her father exited through the automatic doors. Chief Swan's hat was back on now, but I saw him tip it as a woman walked in pushing a stroller.

My mother was quiet during the drive home, but I could tell that it wasn't because she lacked anything to talk about. It was a heavy silence, the kind that comes from having something to say that you wish you didn't have to bring up. I watched her, trying to figure out what was weighing on her mind, but my thoughts were too preoccupied by Bella Swan to be able to focus on anything else.

When we pulled into the driveway, she turned off the engine and left the keys dangling in the ignition, her green eyes focused on a bush in the front yard. I watched her as she fought with herself, trying to decide whether or not she should speak.

"Edward," she began after a moment, "maybe it would be best not to mention this to your father." She turned her head to look at me.

"Why not?" I asked, puzzled by her odd request.

"You know why," she said with a resigned sigh. "If he gets wind of this, he'll sue everyone who was in that parking lot."

I opened my mouth to argue with her, to tell her that she was wrong, but I couldn't. Because she was right. I closed my mouth and nodded mutely.

I spent the rest of the day on the sofa with an icepack on my ankle. I had a dull headache, but Tylenol kept it at bay. After a couple of hours the soreness in my ankle had nearly vanished. My mother hid it well, but I could tell that she was still a bit shaken up. It seemed to help her to be able to fuss over me, so I gritted my teeth and let her.

Later in the afternoon she got one of our neighbors to give her a ride to the high school to pick up my Volvo. It took her a while to get back. My near-death experience had made me the news event of the week at school, and rumors were running rampant. She spent nearly twenty minutes convincing all of the students in the parking lot that I hadn't been killed, that I wasn't in the hospital, and that I would be back in school on Wednesday.

I spent the rest of the evening staring at the pictures moving across the television screen and thinking about Bella. There was something strange, something impossible about her, and I ached to know what it was, but somehow, the more clues I had, the less sense I could make of them.

Tired out from the excitement of the day, I climbed the stairs and went to bed early. That night—and every night for the next several weeks—Bella Swan haunted my dreams.


	4. INVITATIONS

4. INVITATIONS

The first time I broke my ankle, in the autumn of my sophomore year, I returned to school to find that I had become some sort of celebrity. People surrounded me at every turn, offering their sympathies and get well wishes. Someone was always there to help carry my books from one class to another as I hobbled down the sidewalk on crutches. Wherever I chose to sit at lunch became the center of attention for the entire lunch period. When I broke my ankle the second time, only weeks after having the first cast removed, the process repeated itself all over again. Wednesday morning, I arrived at school to find myself in the spotlight for the third time in two years.

All morning long, teachers would stop to check on me before calling class to order. A hundred students asked me for details of the accident, and I retold the simplified story of how Bella and I had dived out of the way more often than I cared to remember. I wasn't crazy enough to tell the truth about what had really happened. Whatever secret Bella wanted to keep, I would respect her privacy enough not to divulge all of the details to the rest of the school . . . even though not knowing was eating me alive.

Oddly enough, no one seemed at all concerned about Bella. Only a few of my classmates even spared her a thought as I repeated my story for the one hundred and first time at lunch. Those who did think of her sent only fleeting glances toward the Cullens' lunch table. It was only her fourth day in attendance, but Bella was already firmly classified as one of _them. _I had to give Tyler points for bravery, though. Near the end of lunch, he pushed back his chair and took a few hesitant steps toward the Cullens' table to offer another apology to Bella. He had only taken about four steps when all five of the table's occupants turned and fixed their gazes on him. Tyler stopped mid-stride and detoured toward the trash can instead.

I entered Mr. Banner's classroom that afternoon eager to talk to Bella, but she didn't acknowledge me when I sat down at our table. I assumed that she was still angry about our argument at the hospital, so I offered her a friendly smile. "Hi," I said, hoping that if I ignored our disagreement from the day before, she might do the same. Bella gave no sign that she heard me. She simply tilted her head to the side so that her hair fell down between us, shielding her face from my view. She never turned away from the front of the classroom, where Mr. Banner was writing the topic for the day's class on the blackboard. She ignored me for the rest of the hour.

The next several weeks were no different. After a few days of trying to be friendly, I finally gave up and accepted that Bella was still angry and not likely to speak to me any time soon. I wanted to reassure her that I wouldn't tell anyone what I had seen that morning in the parking lot, but Biology was the only place where I got close enough to talk to her, and a crowded high school classroom was hardly the place to discuss something that you didn't want overheard.

For the next month, I sat beside her in Biology, but we hardly ever spoke. The only exceptions were those times when we had to work together for an in-class assignment and we had no choice but to communicate. Even then, her comments were limited to one word answers, and I only received those when a shrug, a nod, or a shake of the head couldn't convey what she needed to tell me. She spent her time in class focused on Mr. Banner, her chair angled perfectly toward the front of the room and scooted as far away from me as it would go. Every now and then I would see that old disgusted expression twist her features, and I wondered how long the silence would go on. I watched her as February passed by, as her eyes got slowly darker and then abruptly lighter again, and I tore through the possibilities of the secrets she was hiding.

Bella haunted my waking thoughts, so it was no surprise that she monopolized my sleeping ones, as well. The day she rescued me in the parking lot I had compared her to a guardian angel, and it was that image that replayed itself for me every night. There was something about her that defied the traditional image of flowing white robes and golden halos, though. Instead, the angel of my dreams wore ebony lace. Her dark hair fell loosely down her back, brushing against feathery wings that were as black as a raven's. Like the color of her eyes, the expression on her face changed every night, shifting from curiosity to anger, from frustration to tears. Sometimes it seemed as though she wanted to speak to me, to give me the answers I so desperately sought, but every time she opened her lips to speak, the dream would end and I would wake.

As spring drew closer, we suffered through no more icy roads or snowy mornings; the weather returned to its normal routine of nearly constant rain. Mike started to plan the trip to the beach at La Push that he had been talking about since the middle of January. My father and I made plans for me to spend spring break in Phoenix with him. He even surprised me by planning a trip to Seattle right before the break; he bought tickets for a Mariners game and convinced my mother to let me stay out of school for the day to go with him.

By the end of February, the school's attention was focused on the dance set for the weekend before spring break. It was girl's choice, and as the day approached, girls gathered outside of classroom doors discussing who they should and shouldn't ask to go with them. The male half of the student body passed by them on their way in and out of class and pretended not to be trying to listen in. In my case, I really wasn't trying to listen in. There was only one girl on my mind these days, and I was no closer to being able to speak to her now than I had been a month before.

I didn't think anyone had noticed Bella's coolness toward me until Mike mentioned it one Wednesday morning at the beginning of March.

"What happened with you and Bella Swan, anyway?" he asked as we headed out the door of building three after English. "You two looked . . . friendly. Now she acts like she's allergic to you or something."

"I don't know." I shrugged, trying to make the gesture appear casual.

"Well," he said after a moment, "maybe I can get her to ask me to the spring dance."

My eyes popped wide open, and I turned to stare at him, realizing a moment too late that he was only joking. He held up both hands in surrender and apology.

"Just kidding, man. Just kidding." He lowered his hands. "I mean, she's pretty. Heck, she's _gorgeous_, but she's . . . well, she's kind of creepy. Sometimes I catch her staring at me . . . and not in a good way, either. It's . . . really weird." He shuddered slightly.

I didn't know what to say, so I stared down at the sidewalk instead. Uncomfortable with my silence, Mike decided to change the subject.

"Hey, the weather's getting warmer. We might actually be able to go to First Beach this weekend. You still in?"

"Yeah," I responded, still pondering the burn of jealousy that had flared in my stomach only a moment before. "Yeah, I'm still in."

. . . . .

At lunch that day, Jessica grabbed the seat to my left and started chattering away about one thing after another. I didn't really have much to say about who Heather Andrews was dating or what the decorating committee had in mind for the spring dance, so I just nodded and gave one word answers for the first few minutes. I was relieved when Mike sat down across from me; it gave Jessica someone else to talk to. When I took my tray up at the end of lunch, Jessica followed along behind me like a shadow. She seemed to want a moment with me in private . . . and I had my suspicions as to why. When I saw Mike and Angela waiting for me to walk to Biology, I motioned for them to go on ahead without me.

"So," Jessica began just as soon as they were out of earshot, "the spring dance is next weekend." Apparently Jessica still wasn't over her crush on me. It looked like my hunch was right. "Would you like to go with me?"

I phrased my answer carefully. "Um, Jess, I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Why not?" she asked, the smile fading from her face.

"Well, guys have this . . . unwritten rule. You can't go to a dance with a girl your friend likes." She lowered her eyebrows. Was she really that clueless?

"Huh?"

"Look, don't tell him that I said anything, but Mike really likes you. If I go with you, it'll upset him." She stared blankly at me for a moment, then blinked a few times and frowned slightly as she processed what I was saying. "I can't go to the dance anyway," I explained quickly. "I'm leaving the next day to spend spring break with my father in Phoenix. Between packing and having to get up the next morning . . ." Technically, my flight wasn't until Sunday evening, but I wasn't about to tell her that.

"Oh," she said, her eyes sliding toward the door that Mike had just exited through. My mention of him seemed to have gotten her thinking. She didn't appear put off by the idea, either, so maybe I could nudge her in the right direction.

I glanced up at the cafeteria clock pointedly. "I've got to get to class, but ask Mike, okay?" She nodded, her face considerably brighter. Apparently she had decided that Mike would be an acceptable alternative.

"All right. Umm, thanks."

As I turned toward the door, I noticed Bella and Alice leaving the cafeteria just ahead of me. I followed Bella to Biology, sliding in through the door only a moment before the bell rang. I took my seat and tried to look prepared for class as Mr. Banner began speaking.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bella shift, and I instinctively glanced in her direction. She was watching me, her eyes fixed on my face, but there was no trace of anger in their dark depths today. I couldn't stop myself from looking back at her as I tried to decipher her expression. The corners of her mouth were tilted downward, and her dark eyes were curious, but there was something else, something that almost looked like . . . sadness?

I told myself that I shouldn't stare at her in the middle of class, and I had almost managed to turn my head away when I heard Mr. Banner calling out for the answer to a question. I jerked my eyes back to the blackboard. Someone who wasn't paying attention was always an easy target.

"Mr. Masen?" I heard him call my name.

I froze. I'd been so intent on watching Bella that I had no clue what Mr. Banner had been talking about. I glanced down at my open textbook, hoping that the answer would somehow leap up at me, but I didn't even know what the question was. Mr. Banner was staring down at me. The entire class was waiting for my response. I looked like a fool.

And then a miracle happened.

Softly, hardly loud enough for me to hear, and surely too low for anyone else in the room to hear, came a quiet whisper. "The Krebs Cycle," it said.

"The Krebs Cycle?" I said aloud. It came out sounding more like a question than I had intended. Mr. Banner studied me for a heartbeat. If he was surprised by my answer, he didn't show it, but I could practically hear him warning me to pay more attention next time.

"Yes, Mr. Masen, the Krebs Cycle." He turned and walked back toward the blackboard at the front of the classroom.

Bella, who had been ignoring me for weeks, had just fed me the answer.

As soon as Mr. Banner had started drawing diagrams again, I risked a quick glance back over at Bella. She had her face turned toward the front of the classroom, but her eyes were focused in my direction. I smiled softly, but she didn't respond.

I tried to pay attention to Mr. Banner for the rest of the hour, but every time I snuck a glance out of the corner of my eye, I found that Bella seemed to be sneaking a glance back at me. When the bell rang, I almost expected her to dart out of the room as she had done so many times over the past month, but when I turned back from putting my notes in my backpack, Bella was still beside me. Would she actually talk to me today? It was worth a shot.

"Thank you," I said, halfway expecting her to ignore me and walk away.

"You're welcome," she said after a moment, her melodious voice flowing through the words like a song. Then she frowned, catching her lower lip between her teeth, and averted her eyes to the floor. The expression on her face surprised me. She usually seemed so composed, but now she seemed . . . torn . . . uncertain.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She seemed lost in thought for another heartbeat before she opened her mouth to speak. "I owe you an apology. I know that my manners have been less than commendable lately. I'm trying to do the right thing." She turned her eyes to mine, her expression open and unguarded . . . and somehow pleading.

"The right thing?" I echoed.

"It's nothing personal. I'm sure you're a very nice person. It's just better if we don't . . . talk."

"I don't understand," I told her. She looked away, and I followed her eyes to the front of the class, where Mr. Banner was erasing the blackboard. Most of the other students were already on their way out the door. There was no one around to overhear us. I lowered my voice until it was barely above a whisper.

"Look, if you're afraid that I'm going to tell someone what happened, I won't. I promise."

Some unidentifiable emotion crossed her face at my words, and I immediately regretted them. She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head subtly. When she reopened them, she didn't seem to be able to meet my gaze.

"Good," she said as she swept around me and hurried out the door. I stared after her for a moment in confusion before making my way to my next class.

I was saved from playing basketball in Gym by the fact that Coach Clapp needed an equipment closet reorganized. I was pretty sure that it was just an excuse to keep several of us off the basketball court, but I wasn't about to argue. As I walked down the hall toward my locker after class, I discovered that Angela Weber was waiting for me. I wondered briefly why she was there, but then I realized that I already knew.

"Hey," I greeted her as I flipped open the lock and began to trade around some of my textbooks. "What's up?"

"I was just wondering if you had plans for the spring dance?"

I'd been hoping that I was wrong about why Angela was waiting for me. No such luck. I felt terrible. If I hadn't already started the story that I'd be getting ready to go out of town, I might have accepted her offer, but there would be no living with Jessica if I changed my story now. I frowned. Didn't Jessica keep her friends informed of who she was asking to the dance? Apparently not.

"I'm sorry," I told her, and I genuinely was. I wasn't interested in Angela, but I wouldn't have minded going to the dance with her — on a strictly "as friends" basis, of course. "I'm flying to Phoenix that weekend to spend spring break with my father, so I can't go."

"Oh," she said, looking a bit disappointed. I felt terrible for a moment, but then an idea started to form in the back of my mind.

"Hey, what about Eric Yorkie? He doesn't have a date yet, does he?"

Angela shook her head. "I don't know. I haven't heard anyone say anything about asking him." She brightened up a bit.

"I think I overheard Jessica saying something about asking Mike. If you go with Eric, and Jessica asks Mike, then maybe you can get Lauren to ask Tyler. I overheard him telling someone at lunch that he doesn't have a date yet."

Angela's smile widened. "That's a good idea. Thanks."

I zipped up my backpack and smiled back. "Good luck," I told her as she turned to go off in search of Eric. "I'll see you tomorrow."

As I watched Angela walk away, Bella and Alice walked by. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a slight smile touching Alice's lips. She was amused by something, but Bella didn't seem to be in on the joke. Her eyebrows were knitted together, and she was staring down at the floor. I closed my locker and headed out to the parking lot.

On the way to my Volvo, I passed Rosalie's car. Bella was standing beside it, her expression blank once more as she stood in a group with her cousins. Why did they always stand around like that, anyway? Sometimes, they didn't even seem to be talking.

As I leaned down to open my car door, I heard someone approach me from behind. Turning, I found myself face to face with Lauren Mallory. And I had a good idea what she wanted. Was I the only available guy in Forks?

"Hi, Edward," she said, flipping her blond hair. She did that a lot when she was trying to flirt. I wasn't impressed.

"Hey, Lauren." I plastered a smile on my face and hoped she wouldn't want to talk very long.

"I was wondering if I could ask you something?"

"Sure," I said, though I really wished she wouldn't. I opened the door and set my backpack on the passenger's seat.

"Would you be my date for the spring dance?" she asked.

"I'm going out of town, Lauren. I'm spending spring break with my father."

"That's what Jessica said," she admitted.

"Then why—"

"I just thought you were trying to find a nice way to tell her 'no.' I wouldn't blame you. I mean, you know how Jessica is." She rolled her eyes, and I felt a pang of guilt for ever thinking that Tyler deserved this.

"Sorry, Lauren." I said it as nicely as possible, but I didn't feel sorry at all. Maybe Jessica wasn't always an angel, either, but no one deserved friends like this. "I really am going to Phoenix."

"Oh," Lauren said, frowning, "maybe some other time, then?"

At that moment, Bella and Alice walked past us on the way to Bella's truck. Bella looked angry again, but at least she was glaring at the ground in front of her and not at me. Alice sent a surprisingly friendly glance in my direction, her smile widening wickedly as she caught sight of Lauren, and a bell-like giggle escaped from between her lips. When Bella elbowed her, she jerked her head back to face forward again. Why had Alice smiled at me? Why the giggle? And what had made Bella so angry all of the sudden?

I couldn't stop myself from staring after Bella as she and Alice walked away. I realized too late that Lauren had caught a glimpse of my expression. She stalked off toward the other end of the lot, deeply insulted by the sight of me staring after two girls who had laughed at her. I didn't really care who saw. I watched after Bella until she and Alice had gotten into her ancient red truck, then I got into my Volvo and drove away.

. . . . .

There was a light drizzle falling the next morning as I pulled into the school parking lot. I sat in my car and tried not to watch Bella. She was standing by Rosalie's BMW again, though this time she was huddled under an umbrella with Alice. I opened the car door and leaned across the seat to get my backpack. When I sat back up straight, Bella was standing beside the open door, only inches away from me. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"How do you _do_ that?" I asked her. I winced at the sound of my voice. She'd startled me, and the words had come out wrong.

"Do what?" she asked innocently, stepping back to give me room to get out of the Volvo.

"Sneak up on me," I answered. No one else had ever managed to do it, but this was the second time she'd nearly scared me half to death.

"Sorry," she said, a faint smile touching the corners of her lips.

"So, what was so funny to Alice yesterday, anyway?" I asked as I turned to walk through the lot. Bella fell into step beside me.

"She was in a rather good mood, and she was . . . amused by Lauren Mallory . . . being herself." I fought back a grin and saw that she was doing the same. The sight of Lauren stalking off yesterday would have been rather amusing, if I'd been paying any attention to her at that point.

"So . . . have you decided if it's okay to talk to me?" I asked her. She frowned, her eyes focused on the pavement at her feet.

"I shouldn't," she answered. I shook my head and looked away. I couldn't understand her, but I desperately wanted to. She was the mystery I couldn't solve. I was tired and frustrated—tired of lying awake at night thinking about her and frustrated that talking to her only gave me more questions. I stopped and turned to face her.

"You're driving me crazy, you know?" I told her. "I don't understand you. One day you're saving my life, and the next you're completely ignoring me. And every time you talk to me, all you say is that you shouldn't be talking to me." I watched her, trying to decide what kind of game she was playing.

Her scowl deepened, and she finally met my eyes again. "It's considerably more complicated than that."

"How?" I asked. When she said nothing, I adjusted the strap of my backpack and headed toward school again. She hurried around me and stood blocking my path. I stared at her for a moment, then closed my eyes. No matter how fascinated I was with her, this had to stop. Playing this strange game with her, trying to figure her out - I was going to lose my mind.

"I'm sorry, okay?" She shook her head as if to clear it. "I just wanted to ask you something."

I cringed internally. Whatever she said now would drive me crazy for at least a week.

"Fire away," I said, conceding defeat.

"I was wondering if, a week from Saturday—you know, the day of the spring dance . . ." She trailed off when she saw my eyes widen, and I had to fight the urge to beg her to finish. Was she asking me to the spring dance? She may have been driving me crazy with her odd little games, but if she was being serious, I'd never be able to make myself say 'no.'

"Bella . . ." I prodded after a moment.

"Just listen for a moment, please," she said in a pleading tone, apparently misinterpreting my reaction.

"Okay," I agreed.

"I know you can't go to the dance because you have to leave the next day." Had I explained that to Lauren? No, apparently Bella had been listening in on my conversation with Jessica, and probably the one I'd had with Angela at my locker, as well. Had she been worried that I would agree to go to the dance with someone else before she had the chance to ask me herself? Was my attraction to Bella not as one-sided as I had assumed it to be?

"I was wondering if, since you can't go anywhere Saturday evening, you might be interested in breakfast Saturday morning?"

It took a moment for the words to sink in, and then I stared at her in shock. "Breakfast? Saturday morning?" I asked dumbly. This was the last thing I'd expected when she'd met me at my car only a few moments ago.

"Yes," she answered.

I responded with the first thing that popped into my head.

"_Seriously?_"

She frowned faintly. "I just thought it might be a nice chance for me to apologize for the last few weeks." Her frown lifted into a hesitant smile. I stared at her, my mind a twisted mix of confusion and elation. It took me a moment to find words.

"I thought you didn't want to be friends."

"No," she corrected carefully. "I said it would be better if we didn't talk. I never said that I didn't want to be friends." I shook my head, puzzled all over again.

"What do you mean?" I asked, wondering if this all really _was_ some strange dream.

"It would be . . . wiser for you not to spend much time around me," she said. Her voice dropped until it was only barely above a whisper. Her topaz eyes gazed up into mine. "But I can't stay away from you anymore."

"Will you have breakfast with me Saturday morning?" she asked again, her eyes still locked on mine.

"Yes," I said. Slowly at first, and then broadening quickly, a brilliant smile broke out across her lovely features. Her eyes sparkled, and her face brightened like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

"You really ought to stay away from me," she said, taking several steps backward into the parking lot. There was a warning in her tone, but her eyes were dancing with something closer to joy. She turned and started back toward Rosalie's car, but she was still watching me over her shoulder. "I'll see you this afternoon," she called back.

I stared after her numbly as she headed back out through the drizzle toward Alice.


	5. NURSE (BLOOD TYPE)

5. NURSE  
_(BLOOD TYPE)_

I opened my locker and stared uncomprehendingly at the pile of textbooks stacked inside. I couldn't decide whether or not any of this was real. Was I was awake? Was I dreaming? Had the conversation in the parking lot really just happened?

The banging of a locker door farther down the row finally pulled me from my reverie, and I realized abruptly that I was going to be late for English if I didn't get moving. Grabbing the books I needed for my morning classes, I slammed the door of my locker shut and hurried toward building three. I slipped through the classroom door only a second before the bell rang. Grimacing apologetically at Mr. Mason's pointed look, I took my seat.

That morning seemed to drag on forever. I couldn't seem to pay attention in any of my classes. I tried to listen as my teachers droned on about the Bill of Rights and the properties of isosceles triangles, but all I could see was Bella's face. I could hardly stand the wait until lunch. I needed proof that this morning was real. Would she smile at me from her seat across the cafeteria? Or would she ignore me and pretend that this morning had never happened? I had to know.

As I stepped through the cafeteria door, my eyes automatically slid across the room to the Cullens' usual table. Bella's cousins were already seated, but Bella was not there. Was she running late from her last class? Had she left school, vanishing again like she had after her first day? I scanned the line to see if she was still waiting to get her lunch. No Bella.

Preoccupied by Bella's absence, I grabbed a sandwich and a drink at random and made my way toward my regular table. Halfway there, something made me glance toward the far end of the cafeteria, to a darker corner where no one usually sat. Bella was sitting alone at a table, her eyes following me as I crossed the room. My feet slowed, and I stared back at her. A hesitant smile flitted across her lips. She lowered her eyes to the empty chair across from her, then peered back up at me through her lashes. Did she want me to join her? She lifted her head again and smiled. I walked across the cafeteria toward her, feeling several sets of eyes on my back as I went.

"Hi," she said as I set my tray down and took a seat in the chair across from her.

"Hi," I responded. I glanced at the empty seats around us. "So . . . what's with the private table?"

"I just thought we could talk a little." She smiled, and her face was just as radiant as it had been this morning in the parking lot. For a moment I felt as though I were staring into the sun. I had to look away.

"So we're officially talking, then." I twisted the cap off my juice bottle and took a drink.

She seemed to ponder that for a moment. "I suppose," she answered vaguely.

"What made you change your mind?" I asked. Her smile faded away.

"I just . . . I can't do this anymore." Her eyes seemed . . . vulnerable, as though she had just told me her deepest, darkest secret and was waiting for my censure.

"Can't do _what_ anymore?" I asked. I'd been sitting here for less than five minutes, and she'd already lost me.

"I can't stay away from you anymore," she answered, her perfect eyebrows lowering the tiniest bit. "It's too late now anyway. All I can do is hope that somehow it will all turn out in the end."

I stared at her for a moment, trying to decide what she meant by such an enigmatic statement. "So . . . you want to be friends then?" I searched her eyes, hoping to find some logical answer floating in their golden depths, but her eyes, like the rest of her, were an unfathomable mystery.

"Friends? Yes, I do, but I'm not sure that I'm a suitable companion for you."

"Okay . . . and why wouldn't you be a 'suitable companion' for me?"

She grimaced faintly. She seemed . . . ashamed. "I'm not exactly the girl next door, Edward."

As if I didn't already know that. "I think I figured that out when you kept Tyler's van from flattening me. Something I still haven't managed to figure out, by the way."

"You're trying to figure it out?" she asked. I nodded, and she frowned. "I wish you wouldn't." Her eyes were sad.

"Why not?" I asked, but she didn't answer. Instead, she turned her head to look up at the clock.

"You should be eating your lunch," she told me. I glanced down at the table in front of her, empty except for an unopened bottle of water.

"You don't even have a lunch," I pointed out.

"I ate a big breakfast." Something about that must have amused her because she smiled faintly.

I frowned down at my sandwich. Eating a big breakfast was the first answer she'd given me that made any sense, but why was it amusing to her? What was so humorous about answering my questions?

"Are you sure?" I asked. She might have been driving me insane, but I still felt rude eating when she had nothing in front of her. "I mean, I can go get you something if you want."

"No, but thank you." She watched me expectantly. "Eat," she said a moment later when I still hadn't reached for my food.

I took a bite of my sandwich. It was supposed to be ham and cheese, but it tasted more like cardboard. I ate it anyway, watching her as she opened the water bottle and lifted it to her lips to take several dainty sips. I finished my sandwich and took another drink of my juice.

"So, are you going to change your mind again?" I asked. "Are we really talking, or will we just go back to ignoring each other tomorrow?"

"No," she said. "No, that's all over. I can't go back, not now." I waited for her to continue, but she didn't.

"I don't get you," I finally admitted. "You're not . . . like other people."

It wasn't the best choice of words, but I didn't know how else to explain it. She stared at me for a moment, and I was afraid that I might have offended her, but she only leaned in closer, studying me with her golden eyes.

"What makes you say that?" she asked. Something about those eyes pulled at me. It wasn't their unusual color, but something . . . deeper. They twisted something in my gut, leaving me feeling out of sorts, and I spoke without thinking.

"I don't think you think like other people do. It's like you're . . . an alien or something." As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. I hadn't really meant to speak them aloud - I wasn't even sure what I'd meant - but she laughed. It was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard.

"Is that what you think?" she asked. She was amused, but she seemed to be laughing at my idea, and not at me.

"No, not really," I denied. I tried to make a joke out of it. "You're not green, and I haven't seen any antennae sticking out of your forehead, so . . ."

She laughed again. "I'm no more an alien than you are, I promise." She studied me for another moment. "Is that the only possibility you've considered?" she asked.

To be honest, I'd only come up with one _real_ theory, and she'd think I was crazy if I told her what it was. I thought I was crazy for even thinking it. I tried to come up with something that might make her smile again, something less offensive than implying that she was some kind of an extra terrestrial.

"Well, there's always Greek mythology," I said, winging it as best I could. "In the old myths, gods were always coming down from Olympus in disguise and mingling with us lowly mortals. I think you'd make a good Athena."

"Athena?" she asked. She studied me for a moment. "Isn't the Aphrodite comparison more traditional? Doesn't every girl want to be compared to the goddess of love and beauty?" I shook my head.

"No. Aphrodite was beautiful, sure, but she was also shallow and conceited. Athena was beautiful, too, but she had brains to go with it." She seemed to consider that for a moment. I watched another smile creep slowly across her face.

"Athena . . . I like that," she said, but then her smile faded away. "But I'm no deity."

"Well, there went that theory," I confessed with an exaggerated sigh. I thought for a moment, trying to come up with something else that might make her laugh.

"Xena?" I asked. I was rewarded with a bell-like giggle. She shook her head.

"Buffy the vampire slayer?" Her laughter came a heartbeat slower this time, but still it came. I wondered what she had thought about in that instant before she responded. She lifted the bottle of water to her lips again.

"Give me a little while," I told her with a smile. "I'll come up with something."

I watched her smile fade. "Maybe you shouldn't try to figure it out," she said sadly.

"Why not?" I asked, emptying my juice bottle.

"Maybe I'm not some kind of heroine, Edward. Maybe I'm . . . the other guy."

I studied her face for a moment, trying to piece together what she was saying. If she wasn't the heroine, then that made her . . . the villain?

"You think you're the bad guy?" I asked. I waited for a response, for her to correct my obvious misunderstanding, but she remained silent.

"Sometimes I am," she whispered. I stared at her, surprised by the strange direction this conversation was taking. Bella was different, yes, but even though I'd felt the heat of her angry glares, I'd never felt like I was in any sort of danger when I was around her.

"But you're not . . . evil." I was certain of that much, at least. Evil people didn't hang out in high school parking lots saving people from being crushed by vans.

Her eyes seemed infinitely sad. The look she gave me was pleading, as though she were begging me for something, but for what I couldn't guess.

"You've been trying to warn me," I realized aloud, her odd behavior suddenly making sense. "You think you're dangerous, and you've been trying to keep me away."

She nodded gently, her eyes focused on mine. The sadness that softened her expression pulled at me, and suddenly I wanted to comfort her, to take those shadows away.

"Bad guys don't try to stay away from the good guys to keep them safe," I told her with a tentative smile, "so you can't be that bad."

"Sometimes I am," she said again. I watched her eyes drop down to her hands as she curled her fingers around her water bottle. Something about that bottle seemed . . . off, but this whole conversation had me off balance. I couldn't begin to understand why a bottle of water should bother me. When I glanced back up, I realized that the cafeteria was emptying. I checked the clock.

"We're going to be late for class," I said, standing.

"I'm not going to Biology today," she said quietly, looking up at me from her chair. I paused in the middle of leaning over to pick up my tray.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Just ditching." She smiled faintly. "It doesn't hurt to skip class every now and again."

Standing there, looking down at her, I wanted to skip Biology, too. I wanted to stay here with her and make her smile again, but I was far too worried about my father finding out to risk it.

"I'd better go," I told her, backing reluctantly away from the table.

"I'll see you later, then," she said, still seated.

I threw my trash away and headed for the door. One last glance over my shoulder showed me that Bella was still sitting in the otherwise empty cafeteria, her eyes following me toward the exit.

I hurried toward Biology. Sliding in through the classroom door half a second before the bell rang, I gave the front of the room a quick glance and was relieved to see that Mr. Banner wasn't there; apparently I wasn't the only person running late today. Still, I was going to have to stop this late-for-class thing. It was getting to be a bad habit.

Mike and Angela sent questioning looks in my direction as I headed toward my table. They were curious about what had happened during lunch, I was sure, but I couldn't even begin to think what to tell them.

I had only just sat down when Mr. Banner entered the room and called the class to order. In his arms he carried several small boxes. He set them down in front of Bella's empty seat – the only empty desk in the room - and asked Mike to pass them around.

"Okay, guys, I want you all to take one piece from each box," he said. He reached into the pocket of his lab coat, pulled out two rubber gloves, and put them on. "The first should be an indicator card," he continued, holding up a white card with four squares marked on it. "The second is a four-pronged applicator." He held up something that looked like a comb that was missing most of its teeth. "And the third is a sterile micro-lancet." He pulled out a tiny blue plastic wrapper and tore it open.

"I'll be coming around with a dropper of water to prepare your cards, so please don't start until I get to you." He leaned over and put one droplet of water into each square on the card in front of me. "Then I want you to carefully prick your finger with the lancet . . ." He turned to me and raised his eyebrows in askance. I'd been poked and prodded so much in the last few years that it didn't bother me anymore, so I shrugged and held out my hand. He pricked the tip of my middle finger.

"Put a small drop of blood on each of the prongs." He squeezed my finger, trying to get a large enough drop of blood for the applicator while holding my hand high enough that the rest of the class could see what he was doing. "And then apply it to the card." He let me have my hand back as he transferred my blood onto the card, holding it up for the class to see. In the back of the room I thought I heard someone groan.

"The Red Cross is having a blood drive in Port Angeles next weekend, so I thought you should all know your blood type." He seemed rather pleased with himself for coming up with this idea. "Those of you who aren't eighteen yet will need a parent's permission—I have slips at my desk."

As he continued through the classroom placing water droplets on each student's card, I stared down at the four red dots on mine and wondered why Bella had decided to skip Biology. Would we have continued our conversation from lunch if she had chosen to come to class instead?

When Mr. Banner had finished preparing everyone's cards, he came back to my desk and used mine as the example again. With Mr. Banner doing all of the work for me, I had already finished the lab before many of my more squeamish classmates had even gotten up enough nerve to use the lancet. My finger had stopped bleeding, but it had left a trail of dried blood behind, so I asked to be excused to the bathroom to clean up. I was drying my hands, staring down into the sink, and pondering Bella Swan when Lee Stephens came running into the bathroom. He dashed into the nearest stall, not even managing to close the door behind him before he was violently ill. We were the only two people in the bathroom, and I didn't want to leave him alone when he was sick, so I leaned against the nearest sink and waited him out. When he staggered back out through the stall door a few moments later, he looked more than a little green.

"You okay?" I asked, eying him cautiously.

Lee groaned. "I don't feel so good." He leaned weakly against the outside of the stall for a moment, then staggered to the sink to rinse his mouth out. The bathroom door opened, and Mr. Banner peered around the corner.

"Lee, are you all right?" he asked, sounding alarmed. Lee's only answer was a groan.

"I should have known it was too good to be true," Mr. Banner told me with a frown. "Someone usually has trouble with this lab. He didn't even manage to use the lancet."

Blood didn't bother me, but I distinctly remembered Lee passing out during freshman year Gym when his team's goalie had taken a soccer ball to the nose. "I can take Lee to the office if he wants to go," I offered. "I'm already done with the lab."

Mr. Banner considered this for a moment. Nodding his head in agreement, he turned and hurried back to the unattended class. I gave Lee a few moments, then asked if he wanted to go to the nurse. He just moaned again and nodded miserably.

Lee was very weak-kneed; I ended up having to put one arm around him to help him down the sidewalk. I silently begged him not to hurl on me. As we turned the corner at the cafeteria, Lee stumbled and tried to catch himself, but his center of gravity wasn't where he was expecting it to be because I was supporting some of his body weight. He staggered around for a few seconds, trying to stay upright, and then managed to trip me neatly so that we both ended up lying on the wet grass beside the sidewalk in an undignified heap. Lee whimpered.

"Edward?" I heard a voice calling from the distance.

Perfect. Just perfect. I just _had_ to make a fool of myself where she could see me. I closed my eyes and echoed Lee's groan of misery.

"Edward? What's wrong? Are you hurt?" Bella's voice was closer now, and she sounded very upset. I tried to convince myself that this was all just a part of some horrible dream. No such luck.

I opened my eyes and tried to untangle myself from Lee enough to sit up. "We were blood typing in Biology," I explained, trying to keep my voice low, "and Lee's not good with blood." I glanced over at Lee and realized that there was no need to keep my voice down. He was still too green to be listening. "He came running into the bathroom while I was cleaning up. He didn't even get around to poking himself. Seeing everybody else do it did him in."

I pulled myself to my feet, barely registering the tenderness in my ankle. I was used to it by now. I looked down at Lee. He had managed to sit up now, but he was looking a little greener than he had a moment before.

"I'm taking him to the nurse," I explained, "but he's not very steady on his feet right now, and we tripped."

My left ankle was starting to hurt. As subtly as possible, I shifted most of my weight over onto my right foot. Bella's eyes caught the motion. She frowned down at my left ankle suspiciously.

"Are you okay?" she asked again. She was much calmer now, but her voice sounded strained, as though she was worried. I shrugged and tried to play it down. I hated when people made a big deal out of my ankle. As if I needed any reminders.

"Nothing that doesn't happen at least once a week."

She frowned at my ankle for another moment, then glanced over at Lee. "Are you okay?" she asked, but she sounded more polite than concerned this time.

Lee just groaned and shook his head, but at least the green tint was fading from his cheeks. I offered him my hand and helped pull him to his feet. We continued on toward the office with me on one side, helping to steady him, and Bella on the other. She wasn't supporting him, but she was watching him closely, ready to catch him if he fell again. She opened the door of the main office and held it for us.

"Oh my," Ms. Cope exclaimed as we came through the door.

"Lee isn't feeling very well," I explained. "Mr. Banner asked if we could bring him down to see the nurse." I included Bella in my explanation, hoping that no one would find out that she had been skipping class. I didn't want her to get in trouble.

I helped Lee stagger toward the nurse's door while Bella held it open for us. The nurse looked up from the book she was reading, her eyes immediately focusing on Lee. I could see what drew her attention – his face was once again an unhealthy shade of green. I helped him to the other side of the little room, grateful to be free of his weight when he was finally resting on the cot.

"We're doing blood typing in Biology," I explained, knowing that the nurse probably remembered the soccer game from freshman year.

Lee moaned again. The nurse frowned sympathetically.

"There's at least one every year." She turned her attention back to Lee. "Just lie down for a minute, honey. You'll feel better in a bit."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bella giving me a pointed look. As soon as she had my attention, she averted her eyes to an empty chair, then turned her gaze back to me.

"I'm fine," I told her.

"If you've injured your ankle, then you should sit down." Something about the concern in her expression reminded me of my mother. I decided not to argue. I sighed and sat down in the chair as the nurse finished fussing over Lee. After a moment, she turned away from the cot and gave me an appraising look.

"Now what's this I hear about your ankle?" she asked, pulling over another chair. I'd been here often enough that I knew the drill. I took off my shoe and set my foot up onto the seat of the second chair. She leaned over to study my ankle. "It does look a little swollen," she told me after a moment.

"It usually is," I muttered, too low for her to hear.

She turned to smile at Bella. "Thank you, dear. I think you can head back to class now."

Bella widened her eyes and tilted her head slightly, and suddenly she was the picture of honesty and innocence. "Oh, I've already finished the lab," she told the nurse, "and I don't think either one of them is in any condition to get back to class without someone to help them."

"No, I guess not," the nurse admitted. "I'll go get you some ice for your forehead," she told Lee, "and some for your ankle," she said to me. She turned toward the door.

"You scared me for minute back there," Bella admitted after the nurse had left. "I thought _Lee_ was trying to help _you_, and I didn't know what was wrong." Her eyes were full of something . . . concern maybe? Fear for my safety?

Lee groaned again, reassuring us both that he was in no condition to be listening in on our conversation.

"I'm okay. I'm just not too steady on my feet sometimes." I watched her watching me for a moment. A stray thought popped into my head.

"Where were you? I thought you were ditching."

"I was in my truck," she answered simply, "reading a book. I just happened to look up and see you coming down the sidewalk."

"Oh," I said, imaging how ridiculous we must have looked tripping over each other. I heard the door open and looked over to see the nurse returning with a cold compress and a large sandwich bag full of ice. She placed the compress gently across Lee's forehead, then turned her attention to me.

She pushed down my sock again and reinspected my ankle. "The swelling looks about the same," she told me. She hummed to herself for a few seconds, considering. "You might want to go home early. What's your next class?"

I frowned, already knowing what she would say. "Gym."

She nodded. "Go home," she pronounced, then she turned back to check on Lee.

At the sound of the door opening, I glanced up to see Ms. Cope sticking her head inside the room. "How's everything going?" she asked.

"Oh, I think we're doing a little better," the nurse responded with a grandmotherly smile.

"Mr. Banner just sent another student down to check on everyone," Ms. Cope informed us. Behind her, I could see Mike stretching to peer in through the door over her shoulder. I took the ice bag off my ankle and leaned over to pick up my shoe. When I looked back up from tying my shoelace, both Bella and the nurse were eyeing me suspiciously.

I raised my hands, palms facing outward. "I'm just going to get my stuff and go home." That seemed to appease the nurse, but Bella still didn't look very happy. I limped back out to the main office as Ms. Cope hurried behind the counter to answer the ringing phone. Beside me, I could see Mike aiming a nervous glance over my shoulder, and I turned to see that Bella had followed me out of the room. I could understand what Mike had said about Bella giving him the creeps now. She was watching him closely, her eyes never leaving his face. It was as though she expected him to cause some sort of trouble, and she wanted to catch him in the act.

I moved to stand between the two of them, trying to shield Mike from her glare as I waited for Ms. Cope to finish. I saw Mike's eyes drop to my foot as he realized that I was favoring my left side.

"Ankle again?" he asked.

I nodded, then shrugged when I saw Mike wince. "Hey, it's no big deal. It'll be okay in an hour or two. At least it gets me out of Gym." I smiled good-naturedly, and his guilty expression seemed to ease slightly. I changed the subject. "So, any more news on our beach trip?"

"We were thinking about meeting at the store at ten." He leaned to the side again to glance around me but averted his eyes when he saw that Bella was still watching him.

"Sounds good," I said, but I didn't think he heard me. He was staring nervously at one of the potted plants on the counter.

"Um, since you're leaving, I'll go back to class and get your stuff, okay?" Mike was already turning toward the door as he spoke. I was sure that his eagerness to get my books was really just an excuse to get away from Bella.

"Thanks," I told him, or rather told his back, as he hurried out the door.

"You should sit down while you're waiting," Bella told me as soon as Mike had left. Sensing that I would be fighting a losing battle, I didn't even try to argue. I sat down in the nearest chair, propped my foot up on the seat beside me, and lay the ice bag on top of it. We waited in silence for Ms. Cope to finish her phone call.

"Ms. Cope?" I heard Bella say barely a heartbeat after Ms. Cope had returned the phone to its cradle.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Edward has injured his ankle, and he has Gym next hour, so the nurse said that he should go home. I'm not sure that he should drive with his ankle like that. It could be dangerous. I was thinking that I ought to take him home. Do you think we could both be excused from class?" She smiled sweetly and turned to give me a concerned look. Ms. Cope leaned over the counter toward me. At the sight of the ice bag on my ankle, she clucked her tongue sympathetically.

"Of course, dear," she said. "That's very thoughtful of you."

I glanced over as Mike came back through the door. He looked as though he were about to say something to me, but when he glanced back toward the counter, Bella was watching him again. "See you tomorrow, Edward," he said. He handed me my backpack, turned, and vanished into the nurse's office in a single move.

"Thanks," I said to the back of the now closed door. Mike was already gone.

"I hope your ankle feels better, Edward," Ms. Cope called across the counter. Bella thanked her and turned toward me.

Pulling myself to my feet, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and limped lightly over to hold the office door open for Bella. She stared at me for a moment, her eyes blank as she looked from me to the doorknob in my hand and then back to my face.

"What?" I asked, feeling a bit self-conscious. "No one's ever held the door for you?"

She studied me curiously. "Not lately," she answered carefully. She walked through the door, stopping to wait for me on the other side. I pulled the door closed behind me, and we made our way down the sidewalk in silence. Bella glided gracefully. I limped.

"So," she asked, "where are you all going Saturday?"

"Down to La Push, to First Beach." I watched her face, searching for any changes in her expression, but she just stared straight ahead, seemingly lost in her thoughts. "Have you ever been there? You should come, too."

She smiled wryly. "I don't think I'm invited."

"Sure you are," I said, eager to spend every moment with her that I could. How much could I learn about her if we spent an entire day together?

"I don't think Jessica or Lauren would be too happy to see me there," she said after another moment, "and I don't think Mike would like it, either." She frowned, still lost in thought. "Maybe we shouldn't push our luck."

We were in the parking lot now, and as I turned down the row toward my Volvo, I decided to ask her why she didn't like Mike Newton. Before I could get the words out, though, Bella had stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked. Her eyebrows were lowered. She seemed angry . . . or maybe confused.

"I'm going home," I said slowly, not sure what she was getting at.

"Didn't you hear me promise Ms. Cope that I would see you safely home? Do you think I'm going to let you drive home with an injured ankle?" She was frowning at me now, clearly displeased.

"I drive with my right foot. It's my left ankle that hurts. Why shouldn't I drive myself home?" Her frown only deepened. I studied her for a moment, weighing my options. If Bella drove me home, that would give me even more time alone with her . . .

"How would I get my car home?" I asked, halfway hoping that she'd have an answer.

"I'll have Alice drop it off after school," she supplied, already turning toward the other end of the lot. I smiled at the back of her head. Perfect. More time to talk to Bella was what I really wanted, anyway.

I tried to go around to her side of the truck to open the door for her, but she nudged me toward the passenger's side with more strength than I would have expected from someone her size.

"I'm driving," she said, amusement in her tone.

"I know," I answered. "I was just going to open the door for you." Instead, she opened the passenger's side door for me. A book lay open on the seat—an anthology of the works of Jane Austen. She closed it, set it down on the floorboard, and watched me settle into the passenger's seat. Taking the ice bag from my hand, she draped it over my ankle, closed the door behind me, and walked around to the driver's side. I buckled up as she got in. Noticing me hooking my seat belt, she leaned over to buckle her own, then turned to study me.

"Why do you do that?" she asked. There was a strange expression in her eyes, but I couldn't begin to identify it.

"Why do I do what?" I asked. "Buckle my seat belt?"

"No." She shook her head. "I've watched you over the past few weeks. You open doors for other people, especially girls. People don't do things like that anymore. Why do you?"

Bella had been watching me? For the last few weeks? I let the thrill of her admission wash over me and decided to tell her the truth.

"Because my neighbor made me promise to when I was ten years old."

She tilted her head slightly and blinked. She looked surprised.

"Really?"

I chuckled at her expression.

"Really." A thoughtful look came onto her face again. "He, uh . . . told me girls would really like it," I admitted. She laughed again, and I smiled. She leaned forward to turn the key in the ignition. The engine caught on the first try, purring like a kitten and sounding nothing like a truck this old should sound.

"So, where do you live?" she asked as she played with the controls, turning the heater up and the music down. "Charlie made me memorize a street map, so I can find almost anything in town."

I gave her my address as I studied the inside of the truck. Judging by its pristine exterior, I had expected it to be in vintage condition, but this truck had been . . . modernized. The seats were soft leather, not the vinyl that I was sure they had been originally. The dashboard was immaculate, without a single speck of dust or dirt. As I recognized the music, I turned my eyes toward the radio. Bella's old truck had a state-of-the-art sound system.

"Wow," I said, staring at the green letters scrolling across the display.

"Not what you were expecting?" she asked as she backed out of the parking spot.

"No," I said. "It's not, but I meant the music."

She frowned and reached toward the controls.

"No, I like it. I was just playing Clair de Lune the other day."

She checked traffic before pulling out onto the highway, then glanced over at me. "You have Debussy in your CD player?" she asked, sounding surprised.

"No. Playing. On the piano."

"You play?" she turned to look at me again. She seemed . . . intrigued.

"Yeah," I said with a shrug. I smiled. "My neighbor again."

"So . . . what? Did he tell you that girls would like that, too?" she asked with a grin.

"Yeah, actually." I watched as Bella's smile widened. I couldn't help but smile back. Her smiles and the music of her laughter were rapidly becoming addictive. I watched her drive as we listened to the music.

"So, what about the truck?" I asked after a few moments.

"She's mine," she answered simply.

"Someone has really taken care of it, that's for sure." I gave the interior an admiring glance.

"She has . . . sentimental value," she explained. "I tend to get attached to things rather easily sometimes, and she's one of them." Her expression seemed to darken a bit with that. I wondered why.

I turned my eyes back to the rainy road, and we listened to the music in silence.

"Tell me about your family," she requested after the song had ended.

I paused for a moment, not sure what to tell.

"Well, you know my mom's a nurse at the hospital. You probably saw her there. She's the one who looks exactly like me." I smiled faintly, anticipating a reaction from Bella, but she said nothing, so I continued on. "I don't get to see my father very often. He's a partner in one of the major law firms in Phoenix. I'm going to go to Harvard and be a lawyer. Join him in the family business, you know?" I glanced back over at Bella to see that she was frowning faintly.

"Do you have any siblings?" she asked.

"No. My father's remarried a couple of times, but I'm still it. No steps, either. Not yet, anyway. He just divorced again last year."

Bella seemed to consider that for a moment. "Sometimes things just don't work out," she said, sounding thoughtful.

I glanced across the seat to study the side of her face. There was something on her mind, and I wondered what it was. Sometimes I could get a pretty good idea of what people were thinking. Their body language and the way they phrased things usually gave them away, but Bella had me stumped. Why couldn't I understand her as easily as I could most other people?

"Yeah," I answered. "My father . . . he's got a stressful job and a lot of late nights at the office. It's hard on a marriage, you know?" She nodded vaguely, then smiled faintly.

"Were they wicked step-mothers?"

I smiled back. "To be honest, I was kind of glad to see the last one go. She was high society, full of herself because her uncle's a senator or something, but I liked my first step-mother, Meg. She was really nice."

"What about your mother?" she asked after a moment. "She's never remarried?"

"No." I shook my head. "She dated a little. She still does every now and then, but she's never found the right person."

Bella was silent, apparently pondering this for a moment before she spoke. "What would she say, I wonder, if you found someone you wanted to be with?" I turned to look at her again, wondering at this odd turn in the conversation.

"I don't know," I finally said. "She asks about the girls at school a lot, worries over the fact that I don't have a girlfriend. She'd probably be thrilled. She just wants me to be happy, I think."

We pulled into the driveway in front of my house, and I frowned. We'd gotten here way too fast. I didn't want to be home so soon, to have to leave her just yet, so I stayed in the cab of the truck and stared out through the windshield at the falling rain.

"What about you?" I finally asked. "What about your father? What's he like?"

"Charlie?" She laughed lightly. "Charlie is probably more like me than either of us would care to admit. He gets . . . attached to things, too. And he cares about people. That's why he makes such a good police officer; he really wants to help keep people safe." She paused to smile at some secret thought. "He's always trying to protect the herd."

She was smiling, happy. She seemed so at ease, and I hoped my next question wouldn't bring her down.

"What about your mother?" I asked carefully. "How are you like her?"

Her laughter died, and a frown crossed her lips. I immediately wished that I could take the words back.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"No, no. It's okay," she said. She was frowning, and there was sadness in her eyes, but her voice was strong and smooth. "I don't really remember my mother as well as I wish I could." There was a faraway look in her eyes as she stared out through the windshield. "She died many years ago. It's just been Charlie and I for a long time now."

"I'm sorry," I said again, still feeling terrible for bringing up the subject. I wanted to cheer her up, to make her smile again, but before I could decide what to say, Bella changed the subject.

"But, speaking of family, I'd better get back to school. Class will be letting out soon, and Alice won't be very happy with me if I leave her waiting in the rain."

_Don't go,_ I wanted to tell her, but I held the words in. Just because I wanted to sit out here in the driveway all evening with her didn't mean that she wanted the same. I unhooked my seatbelt and stared out at the rain.

"I should go," I said, reaching reluctantly into my backpack for my car keys. I dropped them into her outstretched hand. Bella smiled lightly, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"Have fun at the beach. I believe the weather is supposed to be a little nicer this weekend."

"Won't you be in school tomorrow?" I asked. My time with Bella today had far outshone the annoyance of my ankle. I'd been hoping that tomorrow would be even better.

"No. Alice and I are going hiking this weekend, and we're getting an early start. There are still a lot of trails that I haven't been on yet."

I nodded. Everyone knew the Cullens were big nature lovers. They spent every sunny day enjoying the great outdoors, even days when they could have been in school. Apparently Bella was no different.

"Well, I hope you have fun," I said as I reached for the door handle. "Thanks for the ride. Tell Alice I said 'thank you' for bringing my car home."

"You're welcome," she said as I climbed out of the truck and turned to go. "Edward?" I turned back to face her, hopping lightly on my right foot. Her golden eyes caught mine, delivering a solid punch to my gut that left a strange yearning sensation in its wake. I'd compared Bella to the work of a Renaissance master the first time I'd seen her in the cafeteria, but here, in the waning light of a rainy afternoon, she nearly took my breath away.

"Be careful with your ankle, okay?"

I nodded and forced myself to step back from the truck.

"Bye," I said as I closed the door between us.

I had to force myself to turn away from her toward the house. Bella sat there in her truck, watching me limp up the walkway; I know because I glanced back over my shoulder at her with every other step. When I finally reached the front door she backed out and drove away.

I stood on the front step and watched her truck until it had turned the corner and disappeared out of sight.


	6. OLD LEGENDS (SCARY STORIES)

**A quick note to keep you from being lost in this chapter _(read this, it'll help)_:**

My intention with this story was, and still is, to keep it as close to the original _Twilight_ as possible, but switching Bella and Edward left a couple of holes that I had to fill. My first blatant change to the story is in this chapter. Since Jacob is still Jacob, I had to create an alternative love interest for Edward (just in case I manage to continue my little universe past _Twilight),_ but I didn't have too many options. Paul already had dibs on Rachel (she's at college during this part of the story, anyway), so she was out, and Rebecca had already run off to Hawaii and married some surfer dude, so she was out. Then I realized that Rebecca doesn't _do _anything in the story. So I gave her the axe. Rest in peace, Rebecca.

In my universe, Rachel has no twin sister, but Jacob does. So basically, I took Rebecca, made her a couple of years younger, moved her butt back to La Push, and named her Josephine. (Hey, it was either that or Jezebel. Ever notice how many of the Quileutes have names from the Old Testament of the Bible? And there aren't many Old Testament women names that work very well with Jacob.)

I do apologize for how long it took me with this chapter. It's been crazy since Christmas. My grandmother was in the hospital for bit, then we finally finished building our house and moved in January, then they changed my work schedule on me. It's just been nuts. But I'm so glad to be able to get back to this.

Okay, I'll shut up now and get on with the next chapter.

6. OLD LEGENDS  
_(SCARY STORIES)_

I had things I needed to do, homework to finish and a paper on _Macbeth_ that I needed to start thinking about, so instead of giving in to the urge to sit by the upstairs window and stare down at my rain-soaked driveway, I pulled out my Trig book and tried to finish my homework. It was a plan doomed to failure. Every hint of sound that slipped into the house from the world outside had me wandering toward the front window to see if I could catch a glimpse of Bella and her cousin returning my car; every trip I made was a false alarm.

Back in my bedroom, the marks I had made on the paper in front of me blurred together as I remembered Bella's face gazing back across the lunch table at me. I remembered the beautiful cadence of her voice, the way it sang when she laughed, the way it softened when she was sad.

Chastising myself for letting my mind wander, I shook the memory from my head and tried to go back to my homework, but that sound, the tinkling notes of Bella's laughter, wouldn't leave me alone. They played in the back of my mind like some half-formed melody. I managed to ignore them at first, but I could hear the notes shifting, reorganizing themselves over and over in different ways until I couldn't shut them out anymore. Their music was all I could think about. I fought the desperate urge to go downstairs to my piano. I wanted to play with the melody, to see if I could put it to rights, but I knew that if I gave in, I'd never get anything else done this evening. Frustrated, I sacrificed a sheet of my homework to jot down the notes that kept repeating with such persistence. Lost in the music, it was some time before I came back to myself and hurried over to check the front window. My car was sitting in its regular place in the driveway. There was no sign of Bella or Alice.

I had no reason to hurry to school the next morning. There would be no red truck in the parking lot, no matter how long I spent looking for it. Still, as I stood in line behind Mike and Jessica at lunch, I couldn't keep my eyes from wandering to the Cullens' table. Rosalie, Emmett, and Jasper sat talking, their heads bent closely together, but I wasn't looking at them. It was one of the two empty chairs on the other side of their table that held my attention.

"So," Mike asked, "what was up yesterday at lunch?" I turned toward him, my eyes skimming over Jessica's face where she stood between us in line. A weak frown crossed her lips. She was pretending to be ignoring us both, but her eyes were unfocused as she stared across the cafeteria toward the far wall. I could tell she was listening.

"Not much. She just wanted to talk."

Mike nodded and turned his head to glance around the crowded room. Something was bothering him.

"So," he began cautiously, "are you two . . . uh . . ." He turned back to face me as he let the question trail off into silence. So that was what had him so unsettled—the possibility that Bella Swan and I might be dating. She made him intensely uncomfortable, there was no denying that, so I could understand why the thought that she might be spending time around me would leave him feeling ill at ease.

"No." I shook my head. There was no need to upset Mike, and with Jessica eavesdropping between us, I didn't want to say anything that she could misinterpret. Her erroneous assumptions would be all over school by the end of the day.

"We're just . . . trying to settle our differences from before. We're lab partners in Biology, so we have to learn to get along, right?" Mike nodded slowly, but the look in his eyes hinted that he wasn't quite sure whether or not to believe me. He glanced toward the front of the line, doing a double take when he realized that it had moved up while he'd been turned around talking to me. He hurried to close the gap, but he didn't turn back around to question me any further.

Most of the lunch table conversation revolved around making plans for the next day's trip. I listened, but I didn't have much to add—I was too busy ignoring the empty chair on the other side of the cafeteria. I heard Mike repeat the weatherman's prediction of sunshine for Saturday, and I mentally crossed my fingers. Around here, predictions for sunny days were hit or miss. I hoped the forecast would be accurate, though; I needed something to help me take my mind off of Bella.

While everyone else made plans, Lauren Mallory spent the lunch period sending a series of unfriendly glances across the table at me. I ignored them. Lauren was, if nothing else, predictable. My rejection and Alice's laughter had wounded her pride, and Lauren wasn't the forgiving type. She would probably spend several days talking about me to anyone who would listen, but I really didn't care. I was just glad that she had finally decided that she wasn't interested in me after all.

. . . . .

By the time I arrived at Newtons' Olympic Outfitters the next morning, there were already several people there. Angela, Jessica, Lauren, and Tyler were standing with a group of others beside the Sentra Tyler had gotten to replace his totaled van. Deciding to forgo the pleasure of Lauren's company, I parked in the next row over and headed toward where Mike was loading his Suburban.

"Looks like the weatherman got it right," he said when he saw me walking toward him. I glanced up at the sky. There were still some clouds lingering near the horizon, but for once it wasn't raining.

"Thank goodness for that."

"Everybody's here but Lee and Samantha . . . unless you invited someone," Mike added as I helped him load the last cooler. I knew what he was hinting at, but I didn't want to admit to him that I had invited Bella.

"No," I reassured him as he turned to close the back doors of the Suburban, "just me."

Even though I couldn't see his face, I could still sense his relief.

"So, Mom and Dad are already talking about hiring some more help this summer. Anna's leaving for college right after graduation. They wanted me to ask around, see if I knew anybody who might be interested?"

I thought about it for a moment. I would love to have a job. I didn't need money, not really; my father paid all of my bills, but having some money to spend that didn't require my father's approval would have been great. I would enjoy the independence, the chance to do something for myself, but I knew he would never allow it.

"I don't know, Mike," I shook my head doubtfully as we started toward the others. "I'd like to, but I doubt my father will let me. He has this 'no jobs while you're in school' rule that he's always repeating whenever I bring it up. He says a job would be too much of a distraction from studying."

"Even if it's just over the summer?" Mike asked, still hopeful. I felt kind of bad for him. He had other friends, other people that he could mention the job to, but I was, as always, first on the list. He was still trying to make up for what had happened sophomore year.

"I'll ask him," I said with a shrug, even though I already knew what the answer would be.

It was time to leave, but Lee was running late, so we started trying to organize the seating arrangements while we waited. Mike was trying to get Jessica to sit with him in the front seat of the Suburban, but she seemed determined to sit with me instead. Every time someone would suggest a new seating arrangement, Jessica would come up with some excuse to sit beside me. Apparently Lauren's malice hadn't changed Jessica's opinion about me yet. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

When Lee finally arrived, he brought several extra people with him, so we had to rearrange the seating again. Jessica and I managed to squeeze into the front of the Suburban with Mike. We put Jessica in the middle. It was the best I could do to make Mike happy. I turned toward the window as soon as Mike pulled out of the parking space and vowed to spent as much of the trip focused on the scenery as possible. It was the best I could do to encourage Jessica to talk to Mike instead of me, and by the time we pulled out onto the highway, it already seemed to be working.

As I watched the trees fly past the window, I tried to remember the last time I'd been to La Push. Years before, my mother and I had made frequent trips onto the reservation to visit her best friend, Sarah Black. I'd spent hours playing in Sarah's backyard with her three kids while she and my mother chatted over coffee in her tiny kitchen. Summer vacations had been spent there, too, sometimes several days at a stretch while my mother was working night shift. I'd spent so much time on the reservation during that last summer that the other Quileutes had started referring to me as Billy and Sarah's adopted son. But those days were over now. They had ended with painful abruptness one autumn morning when a logging truck had crossed the yellow lines and hit Sarah's second-hand station wagon head on.

When we arrived at the beach, several people went off in search of dry driftwood to start a fire, while everyone else headed toward the fire circle to wait. There was enough driftwood around that they didn't need any more help looking, and I had a feeling that Jessica would attach herself to my side as soon as I sat down on any of the driftwood logs around the fire circle, so I wandered farther down along the field of colored pebbles toward the water.

At the edge of the narrow strip of sand, I stopped to look out over the dark gray water at the rocky islands that jutted up over the white-caps. The majestic firs that grew out from their peaks waved in the salty breeze. I watched the pelicans as they floated along and traced the flight of the seagulls with my eyes, following one after another after another. I studied the clouds that circled the sky, the random patterns of the driftwood scattered on the shore, but my mind wasn't on any of those things. My thoughts were focused on a set of topaz eyes back in Forks.

Bella was a contradiction, a paradox. Nothing about her refusal to come today made sense. She had been deeply concerned about me after witnessing my fall, and she'd even insisted on taking me home, but she hadn't even considered my invitation. She hadn't used her hiking trip as an excuse either, but she'd been quick to point out that Mike wouldn't want her along. Of course, she'd probably been right on that count, but why was she so concerned about Mike's feelings when it was obvious that she didn't like him? And why didn't she like him? I felt like I was missing several important pieces of the puzzle. It was a feeling I was getting used to.

"Hey, Masen!" Turning at the sound of my name, I looked back to discover that the fire circle had been lit. The growing flames flickered toward the sky in hues of blue and green, a result of the salt in the burning driftwood. Mike was walking across the field of pebbles that led to where I stood. "We're going to head down to some of the tidal pools," he called. "You want to come?"

I glanced back toward at the fire circle. Jessica was sitting in the middle of a group of chattering girls. She didn't seem interested in tidal pools.

"Sure," I called back as I turned away from the water and headed into the trees.

Some of the others had already arrived at the pools. I could hear their laughter as I emerged from the cover of the forest. Not in the mood for company while I pondered Bella, I chose a deserted rock beside one of the larger pools and sat down to watch.

Striped eels darted in and out through the sea grass from their hiding places among the rainbow tinted pebbles. My eyes followed a crab as it scampered along the bottom of the pool, past a starfish that clung to the rocks along the edge of the water. There was so much color, so much to observe. I wondered what Bella would think of this tiny little world if she were here with me. Would it make her smile? Would her golden eyes brighten at the sight of it?

I wasn't going to lie to myself and say that I wasn't interested in Bella. She was beautiful—no one could deny that—but it wasn't just her beauty that pulled at me. There was something more . . . something about the way she smiled . . . or the way she frowned sometimes, that drew me in. There was something about her family, too, something that had always nagged at me, something that seemed to push everyone else away. I had wondered about it idly before, but never with any serious curiosity. Now I wanted to solve the puzzle, to discover what secrets she was hiding, because I wanted to know her, really know her. She pulled at me in a way that no one ever had.

Judging from the angle of the sun in the sky, an unusual sight in this corner of the world, it was nearing lunchtime, so we started back. By the time we got back to the fire circle, our group had grown in size. Several of the teenagers from the reservation had come down to join us. I searched the new faces, looking for anyone I remembered. I recognized a few of them, and some seemed to recognize me, but the six years between eleven and seventeen are long years, and I doubted if many of them would remember the skinny red-haired kid who always hung out at Billy and Sarah Black's house. But then, halfway around the circle, I found two faces that I knew very well.

The seats around them were filled, so I just waved as I grabbed a sandwich and a soda and sat down on the other side of the circle. As we ate, clouds began to move in, blocking the sun for long moments at a time. I waited as people began to wander off down the beach in twos and threes, then grabbed a seat beside Jacob as soon as one opened up.

"Hey, long time, no see," Jacob said, punching me lightly in the arm. I had seen him from time to time over the past few years, but Sarah's death had driven a painful wedge between our families, one that had never completely healed. He was taller now, of course, and his skin had darkened a shade. The hair that Sarah had always kept trimmed had grown out long and was held back with a rubber band. I remembered playing in his backyard, pretending to be Quileute braves from long ago. Jacob was starting to look the part.

"Same goes."

A smiling face peeked around from Jacob's other side, and I was struck for a moment by just how much Jacob's twin sister looked like their mother. I didn't know how I had missed it all those years ago, but age had only accented the similarity. It knocked the wind out of me for a moment to see Sarah's dark eyes shining out at me from above Sarah's smile. I managed to smile back through my surprise.

"Hey, Josie."

"Hey, Edward," Josie beamed. She leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. "Why don't you ditch this loser and come sit over here?"

"Ignore her," Jacob told me. "She's still mad at me for beating her to the bathroom this morning." Josie's smile never faltered, but she elbowed Jacob in the ribs hard enough to make him wince. I smiled faintly at the twins' antics. Some things never changed.

"How have you guys been?" I asked.

"Same old, same old," Jacob replied with a shrug. "You?"

"About the same. How's Rachel? Is she here?" I lifted my head to survey the people scattered along the beach. None of them looked like the twins' older sister.

"No." Jacob shook his head. "Rachel got a scholarship to Washington State."

"She spends all of her time with her nose in a book," Josie added. "She's even taking classes over the summer." She wrinkled her nose at the thought.

"Now that you mention it, I think I did hear something about Washington State," I thought aloud. I just couldn't remember where I'd heard it.

"I passed you on the road the other day," Jacob ventured. "Nice wheels."

I smiled ruefully and turned my eyes to study the tongues of flame rising from the center of the circle. "Sixteenth birthday present from my father. I woke up that morning, looked out the window, and there it was." I left out the part where there had been no phone call and no birthday card, either. Just the copy of a fax to the dealership on my father's office letterhead with a typed note that said, "Happy Birthday, Edward!"

"Nice present. We're going to have to _build_ our car."

"Build a car?" I asked, turning back to face him. "You're building a car?" Jacob had always been fascinated by anything with moving parts. Apparently that hadn't changed.

"Don't sound so surprised. We're good mechanics," Josie insisted. Her brother just shrugged.

"She's tolerable, for free labor," Jacob admitted, the corner of his mouth lifting as he teased his sister. That comment earned him another elbow in the ribs, which he ignored. "We're working on a 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit," he said, his expression brightening. "You wouldn't happen to know where we could find a master cylinder, would you?"

"Just the local junkyards." I thought for a moment. "Did you try posting something on the bulletin board at the post office?"

"You know Edward, Josie?" Lauren interrupted from her seat on the other side of the fire circle. Judging from the glare she was sending in my direction, her feelings toward me hadn't mellowed overnight.

Josie studied Lauren for a heartbeat, then smiled over at me just a little too brightly. "We've known each other for _years_," she laughed. I got the feeling that Josie's opinion of Lauren wasn't any higher than my own.

"How nice," Lauren responded, but her tone didn't sound like she thought it was nice at all.

"Edward," Lauren began again, and I had a sneaking suspicion that I wouldn't like what was about to come out of her mouth. "I was just saying to Tyler that it was too bad none of the Cullens could come out today. Didn't anyone think to invite them?" She tried to look concerned, but judging by Josie's expression, I wasn't the only one who wasn't buying it.

"You mean Dr. Carlisle Cullen's family?" one of the guys from the reservation interrupted. He seemed several years older than everyone else gathered around the fire, and there was something about him that was vaguely familiar. I tried to place his features in my memory, but nothing clicked.

"Yes, do you know them?" Lauren asked, annoyed that someone had interfered with her joke.

He wrinkled his nose and pulled his upper lip back as though some foul smell had tainted the air. "The Cullens don't come here," he said. There was a cold severity to his tone that said he didn't want to discuss the matter any further.

Tyler, who had been trying to flirt with Lauren all morning, distracted her from the conversation by asking her about a CD. I found myself grateful for his interference.

I watched the stranger for a moment, wondering just what he had meant, but he was staring off into the distance now and ignoring the rest of us completely. Something about his comment made me think that the Cullens didn't simply choose not to come here. He sounded as though they weren't allowed to.

"So," Jacob said, breaking the tense silence. "How's Lizzie?"

We exchanged news about my mother and their father for a moment, but I was distracted. The comment about the Cullens had shifted my mind back to Bella, to wondering about the mystery that I couldn't solve. I remembered what my mother had said about the people from La Push refusing to come to the hospital in Forks as long as Dr. Cullen worked there and how Jim Benson had quit his job after he met Chief Swan. Billy Black and Sue Clearwater hadn't wanted to talk to my mother about it, but what about the twins? Did they know what was going on? And, if they did, could I convince them to tell me?

"Want to take a walk?" I asked. I kept a careful eye on the older Quileute. Something told me he wouldn't be too happy about what I was going to ask Josie and her brother. Jacob shrugged and moved to stand. Josie was already on her feet. We set off across the colored pebbles, Josie on my right, and Jacob on my left.

"You guys must be . . . what? Fifteen?" I asked, trying to decide how to steer the conversation in the direction I wanted it to take.

Josie nodded. "We're hoping to have the car done by the time we're old enough to get our licenses." I nodded in response, letting the silence stretch out until we were far enough away from the others that the only sounds we could hear were the cries of the gulls and the crunch of the pebbles under our feet.

"Who was that back there?" I asked. "He looked familiar."

"Oh, that's Sam," Josie said.

"Sam?" I asked. "Sam Uley?" Two heads nodded.

"He's not _that_ much older than we are . . ." I trailed off as I tried to do the math in my head. Sam couldn't possibly be as old as the person back at the bonfire had appeared to be.

"He's nineteen," Jacob told me.

Nineteen? He seemed four or five years past nineteen, at least. Why did he seem so much older?

"What was he saying about the Cullens?" I asked. It seemed as good an opening as any.

"They're not supposed to come onto the reservation," Josie explained. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Jacob sending her a warning glance, and she turned her head to look out across the water.

"Why not?"

"We're not supposed to talk about it," Jacob said carefully. And there was my answer. The twins knew something, but they didn't want to share.

"Is it some kind of secret?" I asked, feigning ignorance. Somewhere in the back of my mind, my conscience whispered that I should feel guilty for manipulating our friendship this way, but I ignored it. This was the only chance I was going to get to learn the truth.

Josie frowned down at her feet for a moment. She turned to her brother. "Jake, it's just Edward." Jacob shook his head, still hesitant. "And it's all just some stupid story, anyway. What can it hurt?"

"You know how everybody is. If anybody finds out we told him . . ." He frowned over at her.

"He won't tell. Right, Edward?"

"Not if you don't want me to." I waited as brother and sister eyed each other carefully. "I will carry the truth about what _really_ happened to your mother's rosebush to the grave," I reminded them. As I had hoped, the old memory seemed to ease the tension. One corner of Jacob's mouth lifted reluctantly, and he shrugged.

"Why not?" he asked no one in particular. Josie smiled.

"So, do you like scary stories?" she began ominously. This time Jacob reached around behind me to poke her in the ribs.

"Cut it out," he told her. He led us over to a huge driftwood tree that had washed up onto the beach. The sun bleached roots were bare and stretched out of the end of the scarred trunk like claws. Jacob leaned against one of the roots while Josie and I sat down on the trunk of the tree.

"Okay. Do you remember those bonfires we used to take you to on the rez?" Jacob asked. I nodded, remembering toasted marshmallows, starlight, and Billy Black's voice as he told old tribal stories.

"Do you remember any of the old legends they told?"

I thought for a moment. I remembered something about a flood, some story that had reminded me of Noah's ark. And there was something about an eagle and a bear. I didn't remember much, though. I'd usually fallen asleep less than halfway into the stories. I shook my head. "Not much."

"Did they ever tell you any of the legends about wolves?"

I shook my head again, wondering what wolves could possibly have to do with the Cullens.

Jacob nodded. "I figured they probably edited their stories when you were there. Some of the old legends aren't told to anyone outside of the tribe." He settled himself back against the root, preparing for a long tale.

"There's a legend that claims that we descended from wolves—that wolves are our brothers still. It's against tribal law to kill them." He paused to take a deep breath before continuing.

"Then there are the stories about the _cold ones_." He lowered his voice at the last two words, and his eyes darted back up the beach toward the fire. There was no one around but the three of us, but he seemed afraid that someone might catch him telling this story.

"The cold ones?" I asked, trying to draw his attention back to his narrative. After a moment, he relaxed and continued.

"Yes. There are stories of the cold ones as old as the wolf legends, and some much more recent. According to legend, our own great-grandfather knew some of them. He was the one who made the treaty that kept them off our land."

"He was a tribal elder, like our father. You see, the cold ones are the natural enemies of the wolf—well, not the wolf, really, but the wolves that turn into men, like our ancestors. You would call them werewolves."

"Werewolves?" I asked. This was starting to sound hokey. I turned a questioning eye in Josie's direction. She just smiled faintly and shrugged, as though trying to apologize for the bizarreness of the tale.

"So you see," Jacob continued, "the cold ones are traditionally our enemies. But this pack that came to our territory during our great-grandfather's time was different. They didn't hunt the way others of their kind did—they weren't supposed to be dangerous to the tribe. So our great-grandfather made a truce with them. If they would promise to stay off our lands, we wouldn't expose them to the pale-faces." He smiled lightly, amused by the story.

"That's you, pale-face," Josie whispered into my ear with a smile. I smiled back, trying to play along.

"But if they weren't dangerous, then why did they need a truce?" I asked.

"There's always a risk for humans to be around the cold ones, even if they're civilized like this clan was. You never know when they might get too hungry to resist."

In my peripheral vision, I saw Josie roll her eyes.

"What do you mean 'civilized?'" I asked, not quite sure where Jacob was taking this.

"They claimed that they didn't hunt humans. They supposedly were somehow able to prey on animals instead."

I raised one eyebrow, trying to appear skeptical. That seemed to be the reaction they were expecting, but there was something about Jacob's strange story that felt . . . solid, true.

"Okay, but what does this have to do with the Cullens? Are they like the cold ones your great-grandfather met?"

"No," he said after a moment. "They are the _same_ ones."

I tried to keep my face blank, but I was sure some of my surprise still showed. Josie let out a huff of breath, a sort of half laugh, but said nothing.

"There are more of them now," Jacob continued, "a new female and a new male, but the rest are the same. The two that just moved here a few months back were in the original group. In our great-grandfather's time they already knew of the leader, Carlisle. He'd been here and gone before _your_ people had even arrived."

"Okay, so . . . what are they?" I asked after a moment. "What are _cold ones_?" Beside me, I saw Josie tilt her head down to study the ground as she waited for her brother's answer.

"Blood drinkers," he replied, his voice suddenly serious. The smile had vanished from his face. "Your people call them vampires."

A chill crept down my spine at his words, and suddenly the story felt oddly familiar, as though I'd known the entire time how it was going to end. Some desperate corner of my mind screamed that I should laugh, that this was obviously some sort of joke, but Jacob's face was grave and serious . . . and a little ashamed, as well. Beside me, Josie's expression was set into a frown, and she lifted her eyes to stare out to sea. This was no joke. This was what the Quileutes seriously believed. This was why no one in La Push would set foot in the hospital in Forks, why Sam Uley's face had taken on such a contemptuous expression when he'd said that the Cullens didn't come to La Push. As ridiculous and insane as it sounded, the Quileutes really believed that the Cullens weren't human, that they were some sort of mythological monsters.

It was completely insane, so why did it feel so real? I dropped my eyes to the pebbles at my feet. I didn't know what expression showed on my face, but I didn't want the twins to see the shock in my eyes. I didn't want them to know how much this story meant. I didn't want anyone to know that I knew. I wanted them both to forget that they had ever told me.

Josie bumped up against my arm softly, trying to get my attention.

"It's just a story," she said, sounding embarrassed. "I know it sounds kind of stupid, but . . . it's not like Jake and I buy into all that stuff." She placed an apologetic hand on my shoulder.

"Pretty crazy, though, isn't it?" Jacob added. "No wonder our dad doesn't want us to talk about it to anyone."

"I guess we just violated the treaty," Josie added with a forced laugh. She was unsettled by my silence. They were probably afraid that I thought less of them for this bizarre tale, that I was quiet because I didn't want to hurt them by saying that it was ridiculous. They couldn't have been further from the truth.

"Don't worry," I told them. I managed to plaster a small smile on my face, though I still couldn't meet their eyes. "Your deep, dark secret's safe with me."

"Seriously, though, don't say anything to Lizzie," Jacob asked. "She was pretty mad at our dad when she heard that some of us weren't going to the hospital anymore after Dr. Cullen started working there."

"No, I won't say anything." I shook my head and lifted my face to stare out over the water.

"So do we sound like a bunch of superstitious natives or what?" Josie asked jokingly, but I sensed that she was still nervous about my reaction. I took a deep breath, fixed my face into as normal an expression as I could muster, and turned to face Jacob.

"It is kind of crazy. Better suited for bonfires at night, though," I told him.

"Yeah, I guess." Jacob shrugged lightly.

I was saved from having to make further conversation by the sound of footsteps crunching through the pebbles. We turned to see Mike and Jessica heading down the beach toward us. They were far enough away that I was sure they couldn't have overheard anything.

"You should come down here more often," Josie said as we watched them coming closer. "We could hang out here if you want. Jake drives, and as long as he stays on the reservation, nobody cares if he's got his license or not."

I nodded, though I was starting to feel the strain of trying to appear normal. "And once you guys are sixteen, you can come visit us in Forks," I added. Josie beamed.

Jessica had reached us, and Mike was only a few steps behind her. Josie's hand was still on my shoulder, and I didn't miss the look that crossed Jessica's face when she saw how close we were sitting.

"We've been looking all over for you," Mike said. "We're packing up. It looks like it's going to rain soon."

I glanced up at the sky. I had been too engrossed in Jacob's story to notice, but the clouds had thickened overhead. It definitely looked like rain.

"Okay." I stood up carefully. My legs felt like they were made of jelly. "I'm coming." I turned back toward the twins. "It was good to see you guys again," I told them.

"You too," Josie agreed. "We need to do this more often."

"We should," I nodded as I turned to go. I forced my face into a blank mask and tried not to think about what I had just heard as I walked with Mike and Jessica back up the beach. Jessica was saying something, but I didn't process a single word of the conversation.

By the time we made it to the parking lot, the rain was just starting to fall. Mike's Suburban was almost loaded, and everyone managed to get inside before it started pouring. I took a seat in the back beside Angela and Tyler so that Jessica couldn't sit beside me and chatter the entire way back to Forks. Angela was silent for the entire trip home. She simply stared out the window at the rain. Lauren twisted around from the row in front of us and tried to occupy Tyler's attention while completely ignoring me. I didn't mind a bit. I closed my eyes, turned my head toward the window, and tried not to think about anything Jacob had said.


	7. MAYBE (NIGHTMARE)

7. MAYBE  
_(NIGHTMARE)_

Alone in my car, there was no reason for me to pretend that nothing was wrong, no need to hide what I was thinking for fear of it showing on my face, so there was nothing to keep Jacob's story from replaying through my mind as I drove home from Newton's. It was harder to keep a grip on reality now, to remember why I shouldn't believe a word of what he had said. Common sense told me that it was nothing more than some dark and twisted fairytale made up to scare misbehaving children, but that didn't stop the feeling of truth that surrounded it in my head.

It didn't get any easier after I got home. I paced back and forth between the living room and the kitchen while I waited for my mother to come home from work. I didn't want to listen to the logical center of my brain as it listed off all of the reasons why it was impossible when every instinct in my body was telling me to believe. I didn't want to have to mull over why it seemed so believable when no sane person would even consider the possibility. All I wanted was to forget it all, to make it go away so that I didn't have to decide whether I believed it or not.

It didn't take long after she got home for my mother to realize that something was wrong. I didn't want to talk, but I didn't want to be alone, either. I was desperate to hold on to the distraction that being with another person provided, so I followed her around the house, finding one excuse after another to be in whatever room she happened to be in at the moment.

Dinner was no different. She tried to get to me to talk at first, but her questions about my day in La Push netted nothing but short one-word answers. After a few moments of consideration, she started filling me in on the news from the hospital. I knew she was trying to distract me from whatever was bothering me, and it was almost starting to work, but then she mentioned that Dr. Cullen had been at the hospital unusually early that morning. I stopped listening after that.

I flipped through the channels after dinner, finally settling on a college basketball game, but it couldn't hold my attention for very long. I turned it off after the first half and wandered over to my piano. I tinkered around a bit with a few stray melodies, but the song I had been working on a few days before, the song inspired by Bella, kept running through my mind. After a few moments of trying unsuccessfully to ignore it, I folded the fallboard down over the keys, told my mother I was going to bed early, and headed upstairs.

As I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, I tried to remember the last time I had washed my car, what leftovers were still in the refrigerator, how many spare batteries I had in the top drawer of my dresser—anything to avoid thinking about what had happened today. Eventually, I dropped into a shallow sleep. I tossed and turned all night, vague images of dark shadows and wolves chasing each other through my dreams. Some time around dawn I finally fell into a deeper slumber, but even then the dreams wouldn't leave me alone.

I was back on the beach at La Push, sitting alone on a driftwood log and staring out at the crashing waves. The sun was shining brightly overhead, but there was something unreal about the scene. Something was wrong with the way the sunlight filtered down from the sky above, but before I could decide what it was, someone grabbed my hand and started tugging me away from the surf.

"Come on, Edward! We have to go!" Josie's voice was breathy and frantic, her eyes wide and dark with fright. She pulled me to my feet with surprising strength and dragged me across the log toward the tree line.

"Why?" I asked, bewildered by her panic. I followed behind her slowly, feeling none of her urgency. Something told me that I didn't want to leave, that I was waiting for something or someone, but Josie only tugged harder. When she turned back to face me, there were tears in her terrified eyes.

"Hurry, Edward! You have to hurry!"

We were almost to the forest. I pulled my hand free from her grasp. "Why?" I asked again, confused.

There was a rustle from the underbrush, and suddenly a huge black wolf stepped out of the forest. Behind it came another, this one slightly smaller and reddish-brown in color. Moving as one, they charged toward us. Even though they were still some distance away, I could already see the sharp points of their fangs.

"Run, Edward!" Josie screamed. The wolves drew closer, but I felt no fear. Though they showed no sign of slowing, something told me that the wolves meant me no harm. Even as they jumped at me, I felt no need to duck or get out of their way. As they sailed over my head, the second wolf lowered its gaze, its dark eyes meeting mine, and I realized why I wasn't afraid. I knew those eyes. They were Jacob's.

They cleared me easily and landed with their noses pointed out toward the sandy shore. Neither wolf spared me another glance as they growled and snarled at something too far away for me to see. I squinted in the strange light until I could make out the shape of something walking down the beach. I watched as it advanced toward us, until I could make out that it was a person, a woman, and then . . . it was Bella.

She stopped about twenty feet from us, her eyes dark and mysterious. She held out her hands toward me and smiled invitingly. The wolves' snarls grew louder. Behind me, Josie grabbed my arm and gave a strong tug, pulling me back one step. Bella's smile widened to expose teeth that were sharp and pointed.

"It's me, Edward," Bella said, her voice just as beautiful as I remembered. "I won't hurt you." She seemed sincere. I pulled my arm away from Josie's grasp and took a step forward.

With a snarl, the wolves launched themselves into the air toward the vampire, their jaws wide open, sharp teeth poised for the kill.

I jerked upright in bed. For a moment I couldn't understand how I had gotten from the beach at La Push back to my bedroom in Forks, and then I realized that I had been dreaming.

Glancing over at my alarm clock, I discovered that it was eight o'clock in the morning. I lay back down in bed and reminded myself that it was Sunday morning. I didn't have to get up and go anywhere, so I could take advantage of the opportunity to sleep in, but I was awake now, and with the dream fresh in my mind, I knew that sleep would elude me.

Rising, I limped across the hallway to the front window and stared down at the driveway. My mother's car was gone; she had already left for work. I was alone, with no one to distract me from the things I'd rather not think about. I took a deep breath and headed for the bathroom.

After my shower I dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. I didn't really have much of an appetite, but I knew I had to eat something, so I poured a bowl of cereal and pretended that eating it would help. When I had finished, I stared down at the empty bowl and tried to decide what to do next.

There were things that I needed to think about, things that I didn't want to contemplate but needed to make a decision on, nonetheless. I couldn't put it off any longer.

In times past, when my head was full and my heart was weary, I'd gone for a jog. The feel of the wind in my face and the familiar rhythm of my shoes on the pavement had always cleared my head and helped me to sort things out, but that option was lost to me now. Still, old habits died hard, and I had already grabbed a pair of sneakers and an old sweatshirt and was half-way out the door by the time I realized that going for a jog wasn't on my list of options anymore. So what did I do to clear my head?

I stood on the front step for a moment, watching the cars as they drove by. Turning my head, I spotted the entrance to an old trail that Bud had cut into the forest years before. It was the best I could do. I headed into the trees, away from the distractions of civilization, deeper and deeper until I couldn't hear the traffic on the street outside, until there was nothing around me but the trees and the moss and the underbrush. Until the only sounds were the sounds of my footfalls on the damp ground and the light _plop_ of water droplets falling down from the canopy above. Then I stopped, and I let myself think.

How could I even be considering this, I wondered? It was insane. It was impossible. It was ridiculous, so why did it all feel so real to me? Was it just my imagination running wild again? Why was every instinct in my body telling me that this was possible? Was I really insane enough to be considering it?

With a groan of frustration I began pacing up and down the path. My steps were slow, but my brain was going a million miles an hour.

Maybe I was trying to believe something impossible, but I wasn't alone. The Quileutes obviously believed it if the whole tribe refused to come to the hospital in Forks. What's more, Jim Benson was a serious and level-headed man. No one would ever describe him as a lunatic, but something had made him quit his job, even though he'd been a deputy for years, and he hadn't quit until _after_ he'd met Chief Swan. It hadn't been some old legend that had convinced him leave; meeting Chief Swan in person had done that. And Billy Black may have been a veritable encyclopedia of information on the ways of his people, but he wasn't lost in the past. If he believed something strongly enough to pass it on to his children as a warning, then couldn't it at least be possible?

Centuries ago, people had thought that the world was flat and that Earth was the center of the universe. They'd believed that the surest way to guarantee a good harvest was to sacrifice some unfortunate virgin by throwing the poor girl down into a volcano. More than simply believing, they had _known_ these things to be true. They had understood them wholly and in every way possible. Logically, I _knew_ there could be no such things as vampires. Could I be wrong, too?

That thought took the wind out of me. My legs felt as though they couldn't hold me up any longer, and I flopped down onto a log that had fallen beside the path. Could it be true? Could something so unreal and impossible truly exist in the real world?

My first reaction was to deny it, to reject it as impossible, but somehow, it made too much sense. Bella was definitely something _other._ By all rights, I should be lying in a coffin right now, killed by Tyler's van, but Bella had saved me, had moved to my side from the other side of the lot with a speed that was impossible. I had seen her _hold_ two cars apart, a feat of strength that no human being could have accomplished. She, like the rest of her family, was unbelievably beautiful. When our hands had brushed in Biology that day, her skin was frigid, as cold as the beings in Jacob's legend . . . and wasn't it a bit too much of a coincidence that she had skipped class the day Mr. Banner had done blood typing?

Other things were starting to come together. Tiny little details were rising out of my memories and thrusting themselves into my conscious mind. The Cullens never ate. They bought their lunches and put on a show, but the food on their trays never disappeared. I remembered Bella's water bottle that day at the lunch table. At the time, I hadn't been able to put my finger on what had bothered me about it, but now I realized that I had seen her sip from it several times during the course of our conversation, yet the water level hadn't fallen a single millimeter from the moment when she'd first opened it. The Cullens stayed out of school on sunny days, too, supposedly to go camping and hiking, but what if they were simply trying to avoid sunlight? Hadn't my mother said that Dr. Cullen had arrived at the hospital extra early on Saturday morning, before the sun had even been up? And he hadn't left until later that afternoon, after it had started raining.

Bella had been trying to warn me that she was something dangerous, telling me not to try to figure out what she was. Could it really be true?

The logical part of my mind was still balking at a firm _yes,_ but it settled for a _maybe_ instead. I needed to know more, I decided. I needed to have something to judge them by other than the fuzzy details of half remembered horror stories. I needed to do some kind of research.

I retraced my steps back through the woods to my house and climbed the stairs to my bedroom. I sat down at my desk and turned on my computer. Taking a deep breath, I opened the browser window and typed one word into the search box.

_Vampire._

The first few pages of links were for everything from books and movies to hokey religions, gothic fashion sites, and online stores specializing in Halloween decorations—not at all what I was looking for. On the fourth page I finally found what I wanted. _Vampires A-Z_, the site was called. It seemed as good a place to start as any.

The background was simple white with black text, nothing flashy. Two quotes greeted me on the main page:

_Throughout the shadowy world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so terrible, no figure so dreaded and abhorred, yet dight with such fearful fascination, as the vampire, who is himself neither ghost nor demon, but yet who partakes the dark natures and possesses the mysterious and terrible qualities of both. – Rev. Montague Summers_

_If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires? – Rousseau_

The remainder of the site was a simple alphabetical listing of different vampire legends from around the world. There seemed to be hundreds. Every culture, it seemed, had some sort of legend about the blood-sucking undead. A little voice in the back of my mind wondered if the multitude of stories from different countries was a sign that maybe there was some truth to the old myths. I filed that thought away for future reference.

As I read through the site, I found that the legends themselves were varying, strange, and sometimes completely absurd. The Indian _Brahmaparush_, for example, was said to feed on its victim's blood and brain, after which it wrapped the victim's intestines about itself and danced.

Okay.

Only three entries really caught my attention: the Romanian _Varacolaici,_ a powerful undead being who often appeared as a beautiful, pale-skinned human, the Slovak _Nelapsi,_ so strong and fast that it could massacre entire villages in a single visit, and the Italian _Stregoni benefici._

_Stregoni benefici: An Italian vampire, said to be on the side of goodness, and a mortal enemy of all evil vampires._

I tried to focus on the last one. Amidst the stories of evil monsters and demons, it was comforting to find at least one legend that reported the existence of good vampires.

An hour later, I had gone through the entire alphabet, but I still hadn't come to any conclusions. Few of the legends had mentioned what I was looking for—strength, speed, pale skin, beauty, or eyes that changed color. Jacob's descriptions of cold-skinned, immortal beings who drank blood and were enemies of the werewolf didn't really fit anywhere either. One or two of the factors might have been covered by some of the legends, but certainly not all of them.

And what about the other characteristics that seemed common in Hollywood? Vampires were supposed to be nocturnal, sleeping in a coffin all day and coming out only at night. Daylight was their enemy; even a single ray of sunshine would turn them to ash. The Cullens did seem to avoid sunny days, but even cloudy days are lit by sunlight, and they didn't avoid those. What about crosses? And wooden stakes? And garlic?

Annoyed with my inability to find the answers I sought, I pushed my chair back from my desk and skimmed my eyes around the room. My gaze fell across my alarm clock, and I was surprised to realize that it was lunchtime. Giving up on my search, I headed downstairs to make a sandwich. I ate it standing over the sink as I stared out the kitchen window.

I still didn't have any answers. I still didn't know what to believe, but I had at least settled on a solid _maybe. _ What should I do if it were, somehow, impossibly true?

A little voice in the back of my mind advised me that I should listen to the warnings that Bella had been giving me about staying away from her. I should stop looking for her in the school parking lot, stop eating lunch with her, stop talking to her in Biology. I should cancel our breakfast date and never speak another word to her.

Only I didn't want to. The thought of never speaking to her again, of never seeing her smile or hearing her laughter made me feel miserable, empty. I couldn't bear the thought of shutting her out of my life. So, what then?

She had saved my life. She had worried about me when she saw me fall as I was taking Lee to the school nurse. She had taken me home when she was concerned about my ability to drive myself home safely, and even in my dreams, she had never made a move to do me harm. Bella was . . . different, perhaps, but even my subconscious had recognized that she wouldn't harm me, even if it had conjured her in a more sinister light after Jacob identified her as a vampire. But I had been waiting for Bella on that beach—I was sure of that now—and even though I had recognized her as a vampire in my dream, I had still wanted to go to her. I had still felt fear for her safety when the wolves had lunged.

I couldn't walk away from her now.

I took a deep breath, surprised that I felt so sure of myself. The decision seemed entirely too easy. The opposite one, the decision to stay away from her, was the one that seemed impossible.

I washed my dishes from breakfast and lunch and headed back upstairs to my computer. It was sitting as I had left it, the browser still open to _Vampires A-Z_. I stared at it for a moment before closing the window and opening a word processing program instead.

By the time my mother came home from work several hours later, I was already more than halfway done with my paper on _Macbeth_. At dinner she seemed relieved that my mood had improved since the evening before. She didn't ask what had been wrong, though, and I felt a giddy sort of hysteria when I imagined telling her why I was feeling better. _Actually, Mom, I really like Bella Swan. Jacob says she's a vampire, and I think he may be right, but I'm okay with it. _My poor mother would have me committed if I told her the truth. Wouldn't anyone?

I slept peacefully that night, rising early to the sight of sunlight streaming into my bedroom. Sunlight. The last thing I wanted. If it was sunny outside, would the Cullens be absent from school again? I tugged at my window, unable to believe that the sun had chosen this, of all days, to brighten the perpetually rainy skies of Forks. I was surprised when it opened smoothly—it had stuck for years—but the sunshine remained. Saddened by the brightness of the world outside, I showered and ate breakfast in a desperate rush. Maybe I was wrong, maybe the sunlight wouldn't keep the Cullens away today. Either way, I was eager to get to school and watch for Bella in the parking lot, just in case.

I hadn't even glanced at the kitchen clock as I rushed around the house, so I pulled into the school parking lot even earlier than I had intended to. I parked my Volvo and headed toward the picnic tables near the cafeteria, where I could watch for Bella to arrive. With nothing better to do, I pulled out my copy of _Macbeth_ and started rereading the last act before English, but the play couldn't hold my attention. I found myself watching the entrance to the parking lot as the cars pulled in, frowning to myself when Bella's ancient red truck wasn't among them.

"Hey." I looked up to see Mike heading in my direction.

"Hey." He dumped his books on the picnic table and glanced over to another table at the end of the row. Jessica was sitting with Angela and a couple of other girls. I hadn't even noticed them.

"Still reading that thing?" he said, turning back to me and gesturing toward the book in my hand. I shrugged.

"Looking for something to do before class." He nodded, and his eyes darted back over in Jessica's direction. I watched him stop himself at the last moment and divert his attention back to me.

"Have you started your essay, yet?" he asked.

"Yeah, I worked on it yesterday." English wasn't Mike's best subject, so I didn't want to rub it in that I'd already finished.

"It's due Thursday, right?"

I watched Mike's eyes. They kept drifting toward the brick wall to his right, but he never turned all the way around to look at Jessica again. I thought about Saturday, about Jessica's insistence on sitting next to me on the way to the beach. Trying to push her in Mike's direction wasn't helping him very much. Maybe he needed a nudge in her direction, too. Otherwise, who knew how long he'd be the victim of cold feet?

"No, Wednesday."

Mike winced. "Ouch. Guess I'd better get started. If I don't pull my English grade up, my parents are going to kill me." He frowned. "What are you writing yours on?"

"Shakespeare's use of the imagery of light and darkness."

"Oh," Mike said. As I watched his eyes slide toward the brick wall again, I decided to change the subject.

"You should ask her out."

"Huh? Who?" He jerked his eyes back to my face.

"Jessica." Did he really think he was fooling anyone?

He glanced down at the table and frowned. "I didn't think she'd want to go with me," he admitted after a moment.

"She asked you to the dance." No need to point out that I'd had a hand in that if he didn't already know.

"Yeah," he said hesitantly, then again with more confidence. "Yeah." He stood for a moment, silent as he fixed his resolve. He took a deep breath. "I'm going to go talk to her. I'll see you in English." As he grabbed his books and headed toward Jessica's table, I saw him straighten up and square his shoulders. I smiled and shook my head, but then my eyes fell across the rows of cars in the parking lot, and I forgot what had amused me. Still no Bella. I waited until almost everyone had left the picnic tables before I headed to English, but I didn't see Bella's truck anywhere.

My classes couldn't go by fast enough as I waited for lunch. I wanted to see the Cullens together, to study them and see if my latest theory would still seem possible. It had made perfect sense to me on Sunday in the eerie light of the forest, but would it still seem credible in such a mundane setting as a high school cafeteria?

Spanish ran late, so by the time I arrived at lunch, most of the other students were already there. As I came through the door, I glanced across the room to the Cullens' usual table. It was empty. My eyes flew hopefully to the far corner of the room, to the place where Bella and I had sat Thursday, but the table was unoccupied. The Cullens weren't here today. Even worse, Bella wasn't here today. Was their absence only further proof of my theory?

As I carried my tray toward my usual table, I saw that there were only two empty seats left. I hurried to take the one beside Angela, leaving Jessica to sit beside of Mike. I chatted lightly with Angela about the _Macbeth_ paper and what we were studying in Biology, but my heart wasn't in light conversation. I hadn't seen Bella since Thursday, and I wouldn't be in school the next day because I was going to the baseball game in Seattle with my father. When would I get to see her again? Wednesday?

I was still depressed when I unlocked the front door of my house. As I closed the door behind me, the phone began to ring.

"Hello?"

"Hello, junior," came the familiar voice of my father. I tried to tell myself that I was happy to hear from him, but some part of me had been expecting this call, hoping that it wouldn't come this time.

"Hey, Dad," I said, trying to sound more cheerful than I felt. "What's up?"

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to cancel our plans for tomorrow. Something came up here at the office, and I had to reschedule my business in Seattle."

"Oh," I said. I didn't know what else to say. I had expected this to happen. It usually did.

"You can take one of your friends with you."

"Yeah," I answered as I fought against the sting of rejection, but I didn't know if he even heard my answer because he just pushed on to the next topic.

"So, how was that last report card? All A's?" He sounded distracted, but that was nothing new. I heard papers shuffling in the background.

I shrugged, even though he couldn't see the gesture though the phone. "Yeah."

"Solid A's?" he asked again.

"I had an A-minus in Trig." I heard him hum in disappointment, and I wished, belatedly, that I'd kept my mouth shut.

"A-minus won't get you into Harvard, junior," he reminded me.

"I know. I've already pulled it back up." I tried to end on a high note. If he knew I'd gotten my grade back up, maybe he wouldn't be so disappointed in me.

He was silent for a moment. "I've been thinking about this summer," he began. "Since we had to give up on athletics"—he always sounded so unhappy and severe when he talked about this that I couldn't help but feel guilty—"you need something else to beef up your resume. I've been thinking that we should bring you down here, get you a summer internship helping out around the office. It would look good to the Admissions Department."

I frowned. I had promised Mike that I would ask about working at his parents' store, and it was now or never. I took a deep breath and tried to push it all out before I lost my nerve.

"Actually, Dad, I was thinking about staying here this summer. The Newtons need some help in their store, and I thought maybe I could work there until school starts up again in the fall." There, I'd done it. I tensed, waiting for his response, knowing that I wouldn't like it. He was silent for a moment, but he didn't disappoint.

"Edward, we've been over this. I've told you a hundred times that I don't want you getting a job. It'll distract you too much from your studies."

"I thought . . . if it's just over the summer, it wouldn't take time away from my schoolwork. I could use it to earn some money for college," I added, but I knew I was fighting a losing battle.

"No, Edward. If you want to work over the summer, the internship would be the perfect opportunity. And you don't need money. I pay all of your bills, you know that." The disapproval in his tone grew stronger. "The job's out, got that? You'll come down here to Phoenix and work in the office."

"Yes, sir." I lowered my eyes to the floor, feeling like a five-year-old again.

"I've got an appointment in ten minutes, so I have to go." More papers shuffled in the background. "You just take those tickets and head to the ballpark for the day. Take a friend. Think of it as a reward for those straight A's."

"Okay," I said, fighting against the lump at the back of my throat.

"Keep up the good work, junior."

"Okay, Dad," I whispered.

"I'll see you next week."

"Okay."

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye," I echoed back to him, but I was pretty sure that he had already hung up.

I stared down at the phone in my hand, hating my father and hating myself. How did he always do that to me? Steamroll over me when I wanted to talk to him? Why did I always knuckle under and do what he wanted, whether I wanted it or not? Disgusted, I slammed the phone back into its cradle and flopped down onto the sofa.

_Take a friend to the game_, he'd said, but I couldn't. He'd only sent me my ticket. The other was still with him in Phoenix.

Leaning forward, I propped my elbows on my knees and rested my chin in my hands. Today had been too much. I'd been miserable at school because of Bella's absence, and now I was miserable at home because of my father. The baseball game didn't really bother me, I told myself. I'd been expecting him to call and cancel—he usually did—but that didn't stop the sting of rejection. Just once I wanted to be good enough. Just once I wanted to be more important than whatever he was doing in Phoenix.

I tried not to think about this summer. Deep down, I'd known that I couldn't work at Mike's parents' store, that my father would never allow it, but the truth was that I'd really wanted to. The thought of spending the summer cooped up in my father's office made me feel ill, and that made me feel guilty. What kind of a lawyer would I turn out to be if I couldn't stand working in an office?

As I sat on the sofa, weighed down by shame and misery, my eyes settled on the only thing in the world that could make me feel better.

The moment my fingers touched the keys, something seemed to lift from my shoulders, some invisible weight that had been pushing me down. I didn't play any of the songs that I knew by heart. I didn't play from the books in the magazine rack. I played what I felt, trying to find the right tune to set my mood back to rights. I thought of Bella, of the sound of her laughter and the way her golden eyes had danced in the parking lot Thursday morning. I wished she were here now.

Suddenly I was playing a new song, the song that had tormented me Thursday evening, the one that I couldn't get right. Only this time, the music didn't elude me. I played and played, changing a note here, tinkering with the melody there, until somehow the song was perfect. It was beautiful, and it was Bella, through and through.

My mother interrupted me in time for dinner, commenting on how pretty my new composition was. "Like a lullaby," she said. I held back a laugh, imagining her reaction if I told her that the person I'd written the lullaby for might sleep in a coffin.

Halfway through dinner, I finally got the nerve to tell her that my father had called.

"He did?" she asked, but I could hear the hesitation in her voice. She stopped eating to watch my face. "Calling to set up where you guys are going to meet tomorrow?" I could hear the hope in her tone, but I could also tell that she had a feeling it was misplaced.

"No," I said quietly. "He called to tell me he couldn't make it." My mother's only reaction was in the tightening of her fingers around her fork.

"I see," she said. Her face was a carefully composed mask. She didn't want to show her disapproval to me, to let me know that she was unhappy with him. Over the years, she had been very careful not to show any negativity toward my father when she was around me, and I could see that it was a struggle now.

"I figured I could still go. If it's okay with you."

My mother frowned.

"I've driven to Seattle before, and I was going to drive myself anyway."

She watched my face for a moment. "Are you sure you'll be okay?" she asked. I could tell that she wasn't really talking about the trip to Seattle.

"I'll be fine," I told her, putting a smile on my face. Maybe Seattle was a good idea. "A day out of Forks will do me good," I told her.

She watched me for another moment before her expression eased.

"Okay," she told me. Then she sighed. "I just wish he would have sent you both of those tickets. Then you wouldn't have to go alone."

I just shrugged. I wished the same thing, but there wasn't much I could do about that now.

I awoke the next morning to another sunny day. As I drove away from my house, I couldn't stop myself from heading toward Forks High School, just to see if Bella was there, but the parking lot was empty of Bella's truck and Rosalie's BMW.

As I pulled back out onto the road, I couldn't help but think that checking the school parking lot for her truck on a day when I wasn't even in school seemed a bit like something a stalker would do. A human being stalking a vampire? I laughed at the thought as I headed out of Forks toward Seattle.


	8. SEATTLE (PORT ANGELES)

8. SEATTLE  
_(PORT ANGELES)_

The drive to Seattle took longer than I had expected. Two accidents on the freeway brought traffic to a crawl for miles and made me late to the ferry. By the time I arrived at Safeco Field, I knew I was cutting it close, so I decided not to waste time searching for an empty space in the crowded lots closest to the stadium. I opted instead to park in an off-site lot a couple of blocks away. I slid into my seat just in time to have to stand back up again for the national anthem.

It was a good game, but even so, I found it difficult to keep my attention focused on the action on the field. My mind kept drifting back to Forks, back to Bella. Where had she been for the last few days? What was she doing? When would she be back? My eyes slid toward the empty seat on my right. If I'd known my father wasn't coming before last night, if I'd had the other ticket, would I have asked her to come with me today? Would I have wanted her to come, believing what I did about her? Did vampires even like baseball?

The game ended in a 3-4 loss for the Mariners, but it had been such an exciting game that the people seated around me seemed reluctant to leave. By the time I made it out of the stadium, the sun was sinking low in the sky, settled just above a patch of clouds on the horizon. I made my way down the sidewalk, watching as the crowd of people around me thinned and then disappeared completely.

As the sun slid down behind the clouds, I stepped into the now nearly deserted lot where I had parked. My car was right where I had left it, the front bumper easily visible as it stuck out from behind a beat-up gray van. Unexpectedly, a trail of goose bumps crept down my spine, and I was struck by a sudden sense of apprehension, by the feeling that something was very, very wrong. Unsure of the cause of my anxiety, I scanned the parking lot for any sign of danger, for anything out of the ordinary, but aside from my car, the van, and two men talking beside a brick wall to my left, the lot was empty. I shook off the feeling. I was being ridiculous. My recent brushes with the supernatural were making me paranoid.

As I crossed the lot, my eyes focused on my car again. From this new angle, I could see more of my Volvo.

All four of my tires were flat.

I froze mid-step, my heart skipping a beat as my brain registered that there had been reason for my earlier alarm. I turned to go back the way I had come, but the two figures I had passed on my way into the lot were advancing toward me, not walking side by side but spread out slightly, blocking my path so that I couldn't get past them.

"Where do you think you're going?" asked the taller of the two. He walked with an arrogant swagger, like someone who knew he was in control of the situation and had nothing to fear from anyone. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of a dark jacket that was too big for his thin frame, and I wondered briefly what kind of weapon he might be concealing there, but then I noticed his eyes. They were bloodshot and jumpy, dancing first in one direction and then in another. They sent another chill running down my spine, and I had to resist the urge to take a step back away from him. I risked a quick glance at his companion.

The second figure was the shorter of the two, but that didn't make him any less threatening. His hands were not hidden, but visible, half raised at his sides and curled loosely into fists like he was barely containing the urge to punch something . . . or someone. An oddly menacing smile twisted his features, exposing chipped and crooked teeth that gave him the appearance of someone who'd taken far too many punches to the face. One glance at his eyes showed that they were just as unfocused as his friend's, and the pupils were so dilated that I couldn't even see the irises. Understanding dawned. They were high on something.

"He asked you a question, Joey," the short one said as they drew closer. He tightened his fisted fingers and loosened them again with every step. I took a cautious step backward toward the van, trying to stay out of arm's reach.

"I think you have me confused with someone else." I opened my hands in front of me, palms facing forward to show them that I wasn't about to make any sudden moves. I continued taking slow steps backward, but I knew I couldn't keep backing up forever—too much farther and I'd end up trapped against the side of the van. The blood roared in my ears as I fumbled for a way to get around them and back out onto the street.

"Hear that, Davy?" the short one sneered. "He thinks we don't know who he is." There was a giddy sort of excitement to his tone. Cold fear clutched my insides, curling around my stomach with icy fingers. I took a diagonal step backward, trying to get farther away from them while not getting any closer to the van. Behind me, I heard the sound of the van door opening.

"Hey, Carlos," the taller one—Davy—called, "Joey says you got him confused with somebody else!"

Behind me, I heard the third man let out a short, clipped laugh, but there was no amusement in the sound, only menace. The van door slammed shut, and my stomach clenched. I was boxed in—two people in front of me, cutting me off from the way I had come, and one behind, making it impossible for me to keep backing up. There would be no reasoning with them. They were high and out for blood, and the fact that I wasn't who they thought I was wouldn't save me. There was no way I could defend myself against all three of them, and one of them had to have the knife they had used on my tires. Was that what Davy had in his pocket?

I scrambled to recall the set up of this parking lot. What had I noticed when I'd parked here earlier? I remembered a gap between two brick buildings, the entrance to an alley, along the far side of the lot. If I could get close enough to that alley, did I even stand a chance of outrunning them? Could I make it through the alley's entrance, down between the two buildings, and back out onto the next street before they caught up to me? Two years ago, the odds would have been heavily in my favor, but now . . .

"Carlos saw you with his woman, yesterday," the short one said. "We saw your car. We've been waiting for you to come back."

I wanted to look behind me, to see how close I was to the alley, and to Carlos, but I was afraid to take my eyes off of them. Davy and his friend continued to advance slowly. I took more steps diagonally backward, trying to aim for the entrance to the alley that I couldn't see. I needed some way to stall them, to give myself time for just a few more steps. . .

"My name is Edward. I'm not Joey, I swear. This is the first time I've been to Seattle in months. I don't know any of you, and I've never met Carlos's girlfriend."

This didn't go over well with the short one. He narrowed his eyes and flexed his hands at his sides again. I tensed, waiting for him to throw the first punch, but his eyes seemed to be trying to focus on something behind me. Carlos, perhaps?

"Look, I can prove who I am. My driver's license is in my wallet. You can keep the whole wallet. I don't care, but I'm not Joey." A couple more steps, and then, if I could just distract them . . .

Davy pulled his hands out of his pockets and cracked his knuckles, and I was relieved to see that his hands were empty. If he had the knife, it was still in his pocket. Behind me, Carlos was advancing. I still hadn't seen him, but I could _feel_ him getting closer. Something about his unseen figure seemed even more dangerous than the two in front of me. Did he have the knife? Or was the knife the least of my worries? If Carlos had a gun . . . I didn't know where the thought had come from, but my heart, already hammering away in my chest, picked up the pace even more. I watched as the short one flexed his fingers again. I knew that if I didn't get away, they'd probably kill me, but if one of them had a gun, could I dodge bullets as I ran? I remembered reading somewhere that shooters generally hit a moving target less than ten percent of the time. I couldn't move very fast, but would the fact that they were high improve my chances?

The short one fisted his hands again, apparently ready to throw the first punch, and I dropped down into a crouch barely a heartbeat before Carlos tried to grab my shoulder from behind. As his hand clutched at thin air, I reached one arm around his legs, pulling him forward into the short one in front of me. Carlos managed to stay upright, but his flailing arms knocked his friend back against Davy, sending them both toppling onto the pavement. I ducked under Carlos's arm, shoving against his right knee with my shoulder as hard as I could and hoping that I had knocked him over, as well. As I staggered to my feet, I heard something metal skid across the pavement, but I wasn't about to take the time to check to see what it was. Behind me, I heard Carlos unleash a string of curses at "Brian," but I didn't take the time to connect the name to a face. I just ran as hard as I could toward my only chance of escape.

There was a time before accidents at football tryouts and patches of ice when my ankle was perfect and no one had ever been able to outrun me. Running now was different. Now I just prayed that my ankle would hold me up as I ran as hard as I could toward the open mouth of the alley.

As I passed into the narrow opening between the two buildings, everything seemed to happen behind me at once. I heard the sudden roar of an engine and the squeal of tires skidding on pavement. There were two sharp cracks that sounded like gunfire, followed a split second later by two oddly muffled thumps directly behind my head, like the sound of someone punching a pillow. I didn't try to make sense of what was happening back in the parking lot, and I didn't stop to wonder if I'd been hit. I didn't have the time to worry about it. I just kept running.

Halfway down the alley, I tripped on a piece of crumbled cardboard and landed flat on the pavement. They would be right behind me, I knew, and I didn't have time to pick myself up, so I rolled toward the cover of a Dumpster and slid myself in behind it. I folded myself against the brick wall at my back and tried to be invisible.

Footsteps pounded down the alley. Carlos, Davy, and Brian came running past the Dumpster, and I said a desperate prayer that they wouldn't turn around and see me. I saw Davy look back over his shoulder, and I thought for a second that I was done for, but the expression on his face was no longer one of menace. His bloodshot eyes were wide with terror. It was the face of a man who was running for his life.

Suddenly I was no longer alone. In the space of a heartbeat, Bella was beside the Dumpster, her body poised in a strangely unnerving stance. I couldn't see her face, but even through the shock, I could see that there was something menacing about the way she held herself. Her hands were held out at her sides, fingers curled in like claws as she stared down the alley in the direction my attackers had run. She looked as though she could rip someone apart with her bare hands. She reminded me of something I'd once seen in a nature program on TV—the hungry panther poised to attack its prey. In that instant, for the first time since I'd met her, I realized just how dangerous Bella could be.

Up ahead, at the other end of the alley, I saw Chief Swan, or rather I recognized his hat. He was too far away for me to see him clearly in the shadowy light. How had he gotten to that end of the alley so fast? He called something back to Bella that sounded like my name, and then he was gone. I watched as Bella took a deep breath, relaxed back out of her pose, and hurried over to peer into my hiding place.

"Edward, are you okay? Did they hurt you?" Her words slid together in her rush to get them out. Was she hurt? Angry? Upset? Afraid? I stared at her for a moment, trying to pull together all the scattered thoughts in my head.

Was I okay? I didn't hurt anywhere, aside from my ankle, so I didn't think I'd been shot. "I think so," I finally managed. Careful not to jostle my throbbing ankle, I started to slide back out from behind the Dumpster. Bella extended one hand as if to help me, but she must have changed her mind because she frowned down at it and tucked it behind her back instead. She watched me anxiously as I stood and checked my arms and legs, looking for damage. I was still shaky, but I seemed to be in one piece.

"Yeah, I'm okay," I decided after a moment, but I couldn't deny that I felt better with one hand braced against the brick wall behind me. Bella was still watching me carefully, scanning every inch of me and checking for signs of injury. She must not have liked what she saw because her lips slid into a frown.

"You need to sit down."

I couldn't have agreed more, so I limped back out toward the parking lot with Bella hovering at my side, ready to catch me if I stumbled. I was watching my feet carefully, hoping that they wouldn't give out on me now that the danger had passed and adrenaline was no longer flooding my system, when something near the entrance to the alley caught my eye. Two round cylinders of metal were lying on the pavement. My muddled mind fumbled to identify them as I knelt down and reached out with curious fingers. _Bullets_, I realized as my brain found the word it had been searching for—perfectly recognizable, perfectly shaped, and lying inexplicably on the pavement. The dull brassy finish was warm to the touch, and I realized that these must have been the bullets that had been fired at me. I shuddered and pulled away.

I tried not to think about them as I continued out of the alley, but when I stepped back into the parking lot, what I saw there made me forget all about what I had just seen. The dented gray van was still sitting beside my Volvo, but there was a third car now, a bright red Ferrari sitting sideways across several parking spaces with both doors ajar. The engine was still running.

I stared at Bella as she walked over to stand beside the passenger's side door of the car. "You need to sit down, Edward," she told me. "Please," she added when I still hadn't moved a moment later.

I stared at her numbly as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. "You came in _that_?" I finally asked. She nodded, then frowned at me until I finally managed to stop staring and limp over to sit down in the passenger's seat. She closed the door behind me, then walked around the car to take a seat behind the steering wheel. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Now that the danger was over, rational thought was starting to return, but it felt like there were too many things happening for me to process them all at once.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Bella asked after a moment, breaking the silence. I opened one eye and glanced over to see her watching me with what I assumed was a worried expression.

I nodded. "Yeah. Just give me a minute." My pulse was slowing, the fight-or-flight response that the encounter had triggered fading away. Part of me wondered why I suddenly felt so safe here in this car with Bella. Probably because she had quite likely just saved my life. Again.

"What did they want? Why were they after you?" The sudden anger in Bella's voice surprised me. She'd seemed fine only a moment ago. I opened my eyes and turned to face her.

"They were high or something. They thought I was someone else, somebody they had a grudge against."

Bella screwed up her face as though she had just smelled something rotten. "Vermin," she snarled, but she didn't say anything else. She watched me carefully as I turned my head to glance out through the windshield.

"Is your father coming back?" I asked, suddenly remembering that he had followed my attackers out though the alley. "They had a gun! They were shooting at me!"

Bella's expression softened, and she crooked one corner of her mouth into a weak lopsided smile. "He's safe, don't worry. We alerted the Seattle authorities. They should be here any moment." I frowned, not quite sure whether or not to trust her assessment of her father's safety.

_Alerted the Seattle authorities? _My brain was starting to work again. Pieces were starting to fit together, only, as was always the case with Bella, the ends didn't quite match up. "Wait . . . what are you doing here? How did you get here?" I asked. "How did you know . . . " I trailed off, not quite sure how I wanted to finish my question.

That funny little smile touched her lips again, but she was prevented from answering when three police cars, lights flashing and sirens wailing, came flying into the parking lot.

"Stay here," Bella told me as she opened the door and stepped outside. She spoke a few brief words to the officers and pointed toward the entrance to the alley. They took off at a run, and Bella slid back into the driver's seat. Our previous conversation forgotten, I stared out through the windshield, willing them to return safely with Bella's father.

After a few moments of waiting in silence, I couldn't stand sitting anymore and got back out of the car to pace. Bella slid out of her seat as well, but she stood by the driver's side of the car, watching me as I limped back and forth. I was expecting her to tell me to sit down again, but she never said a word.

I was still pacing when Davy, Carlos, and Brian, all handcuffed, returned, being pushed along by the police. They were stumbling, shaking, and they seemed terrified. They kept trying to throw frightened looks back over their shoulders to where Chief Swan was following behind, but the officers kept stepping into their line of vision. When they saw the police cars up ahead, they started struggling, and I thought for a moment that they were trying to get away, but then I realized that they were trying to get _to_ the cars.

"Get us out of here, man, please!"

"He's some kind of freak, I swear!"

Bella's father followed them toward the police cruisers, where the officers started taking inventory of everything in their pockets. I saw someone remove a couple of small bags full of pills from Davy's jacket. So _that_ was what he'd been hiding.

"Is he coming with us?" Brian demanded as he kept a terrified eye trained on Chief Swan.

"Why? Afraid you're going to miss him?" the officer asked.

"He's some kind of a monster!" Carlos yelled to the officer who'd just finished frisking him. "I don't know what he is! Keep him away from me!"

"Maybe he's a fairy," the officer said as he opened the rear door of the nearest cruiser and stuffed Carlos into the back seat. "Maybe he'll sprout wings and fly to the moon." He closed the door and shook his head at us. "You're lucky. You never know what they're capable of when they're flying high on something, but they do come up with some pretty good stories sometimes."

"But he is," Brian insisted as an officer tried to tuck him into another other car. "I don't know what he is, but he's not human!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the other officer muttered as he closed the door. Davy didn't even argue as he was tucked into the back of the third cruiser. He just stared at Chief Swan with wide, terrified eyes.

"They dropped a knife and a gun in the alley," Bella's father told them after Davy was locked in the cruiser. "Shots were being fired when we arrived, but it sounded like the gun misfired."

Misfired? Was that what the strange thumps behind my head had been? No, I had distinctly heard gunshots. The thumps had come right after, and there had been two bullets lying in the alley . . .

"How did you manage all three of them by yourself?" I heard one of three officers ask as they broke off to follow Bella's father back toward the alley.

"Wasn't hard," Chief Swan answered. "They were so high they couldn't run straight. Only made it about halfway down the alley before they started tripping over their own feet."

While Bella's father took the officers to survey the alley, I stood beside one of the police cruisers and explained what had happened as best I could. Bella's father returned and filled in some of the blanks, and before I knew it, we were done. The police stayed around for a few minutes longer, asking a few more questions and jotting down notes. As we watched them drive away, I looked up at Chief Swan.

"They called Mom, didn't they?" I asked, remembering my mother's panic when I'd been brought into the emergency room. She'd never forgive herself for letting me come to Seattle today. "She's going to be terrified."

"I convinced them we were close friends of the family," Chief Swan said, "told them that, as chief of police in Forks, it would be best to let me take care of notifying your mother." I studied the side of his face in the dim light, but his eyes never left the entrance of the parking lot, even though the police cruisers had long since disappeared from view. "But you're all right, so I don't see any reason to worry Ms. Masen when it's not necessary."

"Thanks," I said, genuinely surprised. Cops always did everything by-the-book, but this wasn't the official police procedure. Still, there was a problem with that particular plan. I looked over toward my car and released a deep breath.

"How am I going to explain four slashed tires?" I wondered aloud.

"Easy," Bella said as she glanced up at her father. "Don't. I'll take you home, and you can tell your mother that Charlie and I found you outside of town with a flat. I gave you a lift home, and Charlie stayed to fix the tire. He can drop your car off later and handle all of the contact with the Seattle PD. Lizzie will never have to know that anything happened." There was something in the look they shared, something that I couldn't even begin to fathom.

"All right," Chief Swan agreed, sticking out one hand for my keys and reaching into his shirt pocket with the other. As I dropped my keys into his palm, he pulled out a cell phone and started dialing. He walked away without sparing me a single glance.

"Thanks!" I called out to him as he walked toward my car. He threw up his hand in acknowledgement but didn't turn back to face me. Bella laughed.

"You're welcome," she said with a knowing smile. "Charlie's a man of very few words. You'll get used to him." Then the light in her eyes faded abruptly, and her face fell into a frown.

I glanced back toward Chief Swan as I considered the change in Bella's expression. Was she bothered by the idea of me getting to know her father, by the thought of her father getting to know me? Or was she troubled by something else entirely?

"Ready to go home?" Bella asked. I nodded silently and slid back into the passenger's seat. As we headed out of the parking lot, I glanced back to see Bella's father leaning against the front bumper of my Volvo, calmly waiting for a tow truck.

"I'm going to owe him for the tow and the tires," I said, mentally calculating the bill.

"Don't worry about it. Charlie's got connections. Besides, those three …" She trailed off, her face becoming hard as she struggled to control her anger. "They'll have to pay for it in the end. There's no need for money to come out of your pocket."

I frowned, watching her. "Still, for the trouble."

"Don't worry about it," she said again. "I told you before that Charlie likes to take care of people. He wouldn't be happy if he didn't do all he could to help."

It didn't seem like an argument that I could win, so I accepted defeat and turned my attention to the road. I watched her weave her way smoothly in and out of traffic and merge onto the freeway.

"You drive like you're used to this car," I said after a few moments. "Does your father let you drive it often?" She turned her head to study me for a moment, then laughed.

"It isn't my father's car."

"It's not?"

"No," she turned her attention back to the road. "This is my other car."

"You own . . . a Ferrari?" I asked, feeling like I was dreaming all over again.

"Well, it was a gift." She said dismissively, as though that explained something. She acted as though it were perfectly normal for a seventeen year old to own a car like this. Then again, I already knew that Bella was no ordinary girl.

We rode in silence for a while. Bella seemed to sense that I needed time to sort out everything that had happened, so she left me to my thoughts as I gazed out the window, watching the other cars as we passed them by. After a while, I realized just how many of the other cars we were passing, and how few—none, to be specific—were passing us. My eyes drifted toward the speedometer. When I saw the number there, I raised my eyebrows and turned my head to look back out the window.

"What's the matter?" she asked, noticing my reaction.

"You're just . . . going a little fast." In truth, we were going about twenty miles an hour over the speed limit. I hadn't noticed before because speed just seemed natural in this car. Even so, Bella's hands seemed competent on the wheel. Nothing about her driving actually made me feel uncomfortable.

Bella frowned down at the speedometer. "Oh." She took her foot away from the accelerator and pulled her lower lip between her teeth. "Sorry. I thought I was going slower." I relaxed a bit as she slowed the car and settled into the flow of traffic around us.

"I . . . tend to speed a little sometimes, but don't worry. I've never been in an accident. I've never even gotten a speeding ticket." She smiled over at me gently, and I could tell that she was trying to put me at ease. I decided it was probably best to change the subject.

"I can understand why you drive the truck to school, instead of this. Rosalie's BMW gets enough attention as it is."

Bella smiled faintly, but said nothing. I turned back to watch the traffic. After a few moments, I noticed that the speedometer was inching its way higher once again, but it topped out at ten miles an hour above the speed limit. Still fast enough to earn her a ticket, but at least it was an improvement.

I stared out the windshield into the growing darkness. The cars were thinning, and people had turned on their headlights. My stomach rumbled faintly, and I realized that I hadn't had anything to eat since the hot dog I'd bought at the ballpark.

Bella checked her mirrors and changed lanes, turning off the road. Glancing at the traffic signs, I realized that we were already at Port Angeles. She must have been driving faster than I'd realized. I glanced across the seat at her, curious about our detour. She looked over and caught my expression.

"You're hungry," she explained simply. I opened my mouth to protest, to tell her that I would be fine until I got home, but she cut me off. "I heard your stomach growling, so don't tell me you aren't hungry. You've had a long and stressful day, and you need to take care of yourself."

Hadn't I learned already that it was impossible to argue with Bella when she was trying to take care of me? I sat in silence as she wound her way through the streets of Port Angeles. She'd only lived in Washington for a little over a month and a half, but she'd obviously learned her way around. She tucked the car neatly into a parallel spot along the street, and I glanced out the window to see the lights of a restaurant. "La Bella Italia," the sign proclaimed. I didn't miss the irony.

"Is Italian okay?" she asked. She watched me eagerly, waiting for my answer. I got the feeling that if I said I wanted Chinese, she'd pull away from the curb without a fuss and scour Port Angeles in search of pork fried rice.

"Yeah, Italian's great." I got out of the car. By the time I'd closed the door, Bella was already coming around the front of the Ferrari. We walked up the sidewalk, and I held the restaurant door open for her. This time, she seemed to have been expecting it.

The seating hostess was a bottle blonde several inches taller than Bella. When I asked for a table for two, Bella added that we'd prefer something private and handed something to the hostess. I couldn't see what bill Bella had passed over, but the hostess's eyes widened noticeably, and she led us around a partition to a group of booths. Like most of the seats in the restaurant, they were empty. She informed us that the server would be out momentarily and left us with our menus.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched a young man in a server's apron come to meet her as she turned the corner. I couldn't hear a word of their whispered conversation, but it seemed like he was trying to convince her to do something for him. He probably wanted her to give him our table.

When I glanced back at Bella, she was watching me. I studied her, wondering just what she would do in a restaurant. Would she order something, then not eat it? With only me here watching her and nothing to distract me, it would be hard to hide the fact that she wasn't eating. No, more than likely she wouldn't order anything at all.

I glanced back to where the server was still whispering to the seating hostess. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bella follow my gaze.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I think that guy wants to be our server," I told her quietly. "He's arguing with the hostess over our table." Bella blinked and lowered her eyebrows. She looked puzzled.

"What makes you say that?" she asked.

"You," I answered simply. She arched one perfect eyebrow, her golden eyes boring into mine as she waited for me to explain.

"Do you honestly not know, Bella? Don't you realize that you're beautiful?"

She blinked again and looked away. Something about her expression looked almost . . . guilty? I was still trying to decipher it—was she embarrassed by my praise, was my admiration unwelcome, or did she honestly not believe me?—when we were rudely interrupted.

"Hello. My name is Matt, and I'll be your server this evening. May I get you something to drink?" He smiled down at Bella, ignoring me completely. Bella glanced back up to me, obviously waiting for me to order.

"Just a Coke," I said.

"The same for me," Bella added without looking up.

"I'll be back in a moment," he said with a smile, his eyes never leaving Bella's face, but Bella didn't seem to notice him.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked warily.

"Yes," I answered, not sure why she was asking.

"You just . . . I was wondering if you might have hit your head or something."

"You think I hit my head because I told you you were beautiful?" I shook my head. "Head injury or no head injury, it's the truth."

And, par for the course, the server chose that moment to return. I was really starting to hate this guy. His timing was terrible. He sat our drinks down on the table and placed a basket of breadsticks in front of Bella. I noticed that the glasses seemed to be unusually full of ice. He must have filled them with as much ice as possible so that he'd have an excuse to return to our table more often for refills.

"Are you ready to order?" he asked her.

"Edward?" Bella asked. The server turned reluctantly to face me. I hadn't even looked at the menu. I flipped it open, glancing briefly at the first page and naming the first thing listed at the top.

"I'll have the spaghetti."

"And for you?" He turned back to Bella. I tried not to glare at the side of his head.

"No, thank you. I don't want anything," Bella answered.

"You don't?" His face fell, and he sounded as if she'd ruined his evening. Bella shook her head. "You'll let me know if you change your mind though, won't you?" he asked, and Bella nodded dismissively. She'd hardly even looked at him, but he was practically kissing her feet.

She pushed one of the glasses toward me as the server walked back toward the kitchen. I drank distractedly as I watched her. We'd been in the middle of a perfect moment, but now that moment had passed. Stupid Matt.

It only took a minute for me to finish my soda. Seeing that my glass was empty, Bella pushed hers toward me, but I shook my head. Even though I was sure she wouldn't drink her soda, it still seemed rude for me to drink it.

"I can't."

She ignored my protest and set the empty glass in front of her place setting. "I don't want it. I ordered it for you."

Reluctantly, I took a sip from her glass. She pushed the bread basket toward me as well.

"Are you sure you aren't hungry?" I asked. I knew the answer, but still.

She shook her head. "I'm fine."

I picked up a breadstick and took a bite, watching her while I ate. She was watching me, a faint frown on her lips, and I felt the sudden urge to make her smile again, to hear her laughter.

"You'll break poor Matt's heart, you know, if you don't order everything on the menu," I teased. She smiled faintly in response, but it wasn't enough. I considered how to make her laugh. What had I said the other day at lunch?

"I bet Xena would eat a breadstick." That, at least, had the desired effect. A smile lit up her features, and she let out a short, breathy laugh.

"That's better," I told her. "I wish I could get you to smile more often."

Her smile faded away, and I immediately wished that I hadn't said anything. She watched me with increasingly sad eyes.

"This is more difficult than I thought it would be," she said softly. Her eyes fell to the tablecloth. I waited for her to explain herself, but she remained silent.

"You're usually happier when your eyes are light. You smile more often then, and you laugh more."

Those light eyes slid back up to my face. She was waiting for me to say something more. Instead, I took another bite of the breadstick, chewed, and swallowed. What else had I teased her with that day to make her smile? Buffy the vampire slayer . . . oh. Well at least now I knew why she had hesitated before laughing at that one.

Looking away from Bella, I tried to focus on the breadstick. It was so much easier to tease Bella, to tell her she was beautiful and try to make her smile than it was to think about the bizarre secret that I was sure she was hiding. I took another bite of the breadstick. My mother always said that eating was comforting. I was working on that theory now, trying to stay calm. _Eating is comforting . . . _My eyes focused on the bread basket, and a thought struck me. I mulled it over while I chewed.

"And I think I know why, too."

"Really?" she asked after a moment, "why is that?"

"It's . . . complicated," I answered truthfully. "It's part of a larger theory."

"A larger theory?" she asked. "Where did this one come from?" A weak smile touched her lips. "Are you still pouring through Greek mythology?"

"No," I answered, "not this time. Someone said something to me the other day, and it got me to thinking."

"Really?" she leaned forward to study my face, then sat back up straight as Matt came around the corner with my spaghetti. He set the plate down in front of me and turned to Bella.

"Are you sure I can't get you anything?" he asked again. I sensed a double meaning behind his words.

"No, but thank you," Bella said. "We could use some more soda, though." She nodded toward the glasses. I had barely touched the soda in front of me, but he took them both anyway.

"I'll be right back," he promised her with a smile. I fought against the urge to slide my foot out and trip him as he walked away.

"Now where were we?" she asked after Matt had disappeared around the corner.

I glanced at the empty tables around our booth. There weren't any other diners in this section, but it wasn't exactly the sort of conversation best suited to a public restaurant. "This probably isn't the best place to talk about it," I told her as the server came toward us with two full glasses of Coke. "Can it wait until we're back in the car?"

Bella nodded, ignoring the smile Matt sent in her direction.

"You never did answer my questions from before," I said after the server had disappeared once more.

"What questions?" she asked.

"Well, to start, how did you know I was in Seattle?" I twisted the first bite of spaghetti onto my fork and took a bite. The spaghetti was actually very good, but I was much too focused on her to really enjoy it.

Bella sat back in her chair. I hadn't realized that she had been leaning closer to me again, but I immediately felt her absence as she leaned away.

"Carlisle mentioned it. He overheard your mother telling some of the other nurses at the hospital that you were planning to go to a baseball game today."

That made sense. "But why were you and your father there?" I asked.

She frowned. "Charlie had taken the afternoon off, and we were heading into Seattle to run an errand."

"Uh-huh." Something definitely didn't add up. It could have been a coincidence that we were both in Seattle at the same time, but she was avoiding the obvious question. "How did you know I'd need help?"

"I didn't," she answered simply. I watched her as I ate another forkful of spaghetti, waiting for her to continue, but she remained silent. I sighed and set the fork down on my plate.

"Why don't you want to tell me the truth?" I watched the corners of her mouth dip down into a frown. "You show up in a nearly deserted parking lot several hours drive away from the town where we both live at exactly the moment when I'm about to get myself killed, and you expect me to believe that it's all some sort of coincidence?"

She opened her mouth, and for a moment I thought she might speak, but she only pulled her lower lip between her teeth. There was an oddly contorted expression on her face, and I guessed that she was fighting some internal battle with herself. She averted her eyes for a brief moment, but when she looked back up into mine, I could see that she was torn.

Finally she sighed and shook her head. "It's too late," she said. "You're already in too deep to turn back now."

She frowned at my plate of spaghetti. "Okay. I'll tell you the truth, or at least what I can tell you of it. You eat, and I'll talk." I shoveled a forkful of spaghetti into my mouth, barely bothering to wind it around the tongs in my eagerness to get answers. Bella smiled faintly at the action, then took a breath and started to explain.

"Charlie and I were headed into Seattle." She paused to frown. "I was going with the express purpose of seeing you. Charlie came along because he wanted to talk to me."

"Why did you want to see me?" I asked between mouthfuls of spaghetti. I was afraid to stop eating, afraid she'd stop talking if I did, and afraid to hope that she wanted to come to Seattle for the same reason I'd checked the parking lot at school this morning.

"I worry about you," she admitted. "Ever since that morning in the parking lot, I've been terrified that something might happen to you while I wasn't around, and I just . . . I wanted to know that you were okay."

_I worry about you_. The words echoed, and I had to fight to keep the smile from my face. I tried to hide my reaction by filling my mouth with more spaghetti.

"On the way to Seattle we were informed that a dangerous situation was likely to occur in the vicinity of Safeco Field. We knew you were there, so we went looking for you."

It wasn't a complete answer, but I was hung up on the last part. "You thought I might be in danger, so you came looking for me?" I was touched. Maybe I was wrong about the vampire thing. Maybe she really _was_ my guardian angel.

She smiled faintly and nodded.

"That's twice that you've saved my life," I told her. "Thank you." I watched her face twist into a grimace.

"An irony," she admitted, "considering what happened when we first met." She glanced down at the tablecloth. Something clicked in my brain at the mention of that first day, the hatred in her eyes, the anger. Until I'd realized what she was, I'd never felt a moment's fear of Bella, only confusion at her unexplained reaction to me. Now I understood that my life had been in danger.

"So . . . maybe it's more like three times," I said quietly. Bella grimaced again.

I set down my fork and pushed my plate away. I wasn't finished, but my stomach was tied into too many knots for me to be able to eat any more.

"Who gave you your . . . tip that something dangerous was going to happen?" I asked. Bella frowned.

"I can't . . . tell you," she said hesitantly, then hastened to explain. "It wouldn't be right. It's not my secret to tell."

"Okay," I said. At least she was being honest about why she couldn't tell me the truth.

"I knew where you'd be, just like I knew something would happen. You can't imagine how terrible it was, trying to get through traffic, going backward down one way streets, all the while terrified that I wouldn't get there in time." Her voice sounded strained. She closed her eyes briefly before continuing.

"And then, when we got there, you were running, but I couldn't be everywhere at once. He had the gun in his hand, aiming it at you. If Charlie hadn't . . ." She cut herself off, leaving her statement unfinished. I let it go. She lifted her eyes again, and I could see fury in their depths. "I wanted to go after them so badly. If Charlie hadn't been there, I probably would have." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, she was noticeably calmer.

"But I'm okay," I reminded her.

"Yes, you are." She glanced down at my plate, then over toward the partition. "Have you finished eating?"

"Yes," I answered as Matt the wonder waiter came around the corner, as if called.

"We're ready for our check," she told him before he'd even reached the table.

He reached into the pocket of his apron, pulled out a leather folder, and handed it to me. Well, to be precise, he held it out in my general direction. He didn't even look at me. His eyes were too full of Bella.

Before I could reach into my pocket for my wallet, Bella had taken the folder from my hand, stuffed a bill inside of it, and handed it back to the server.

"No change. Thank you," she said dismissively and turned her attention back to me.

"Have a nice evening," he said, but we both ignored him, and after a moment of hesitation, he finally took the hint and left.

"I think I'm supposed to pay for your dinner, not the other way around," I said as we slid out of the booth.

"Don't worry about it. Daddy's money, you know? Besides, you've had a rather trying day."

We walked to the door of the restaurant, and I held it open for her, but she had already made it to the driver's side before I could do the same at the car. Several men were gawking at us from the sidewalk across the street. Ferraris weren't normally spotted in Port Angeles. Bella ignored them.

When we were both inside the car, she turned the key in the ignition and adjusted the heater to ward off the chill in the air. She pulled out into traffic, executing a perfect U-turn as she headed back toward the freeway.

"Okay," she said, her voice breaking through the silence. "Tell me about this complicated theory of yours."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

I'm waiting for someone to find my factual error in this chapter . . . anybody? Come on, baseball fans . . .


	9. TRUTH (THEORY)

9. TRUTH  
_(THEORY)_

I stared out through the windshield at the blurring lights of Port Angeles as Bella accelerated down First Street. A few scattered groups of pedestrians lingered on the sidewalks as we passed by, but I wasn't paying enough attention to notice if they turned to gawk at Bella's Ferrari or her obvious disregard for the posted speed limit. My mind was elsewhere. Two days ago I had accepted the truth about Bella, but I hadn't given any thought to how I would tell her what I knew. I didn't even know where to begin.

"Is it that bad?" Bella asked from the driver's seat. I glanced across the car to find her watching me, her golden eyes alight with curiosity.

"It's . . ." I scanned the darkness, searching for the right words. "It's kind of weird." The ghost of a smile touched the corners of her lips.

"If you're concerned that you might offend me, don't be. I'm not that easily offended."

Offended? I hadn't considered that. I studied her profile in the darkness as the last lights of Port Angeles faded behind us. How would Bella react? Would she be upset that I knew? It was a secret, obviously, and a carefully guarded one at that. Wasn't that the reason the Cullens had made a treaty with the Quileutes in the first place? To protect their secret?

_The treaty! _I'd completely forgotten.

Jacob and Josie hadn't realized that they were violating the treaty by telling me about the Cullens. They didn't know the treaty was real; it was just some ridiculous old legend to them, but if I revealed them to Bella now, if I told her the truth about how I'd found out, what would happen to the twins and their family?

I briefly considered lying. I could tell Bella that I had dreamed it, or maybe I could say that I'd seen it in an old movie I'd caught while flipping through the channels over the weekend, but I disregarded the idea immediately. I didn't really want to lie to her, and if she somehow learned the source of my information some other way . . .

I studied her face as she drove. She seemed calm now, contented; all traces of the violence and anger she'd shown in Seattle had been left behind. Maybe I could negotiate a loophole into the treaty somehow, so long as Bella didn't know that was what I had in mind . . .

"Promise me something first," I said.

"Okay," she answered.

"Promise me that you won't hold this against anyone. That if . . . something happened that wasn't supposed to happen, you won't hold anyone responsible."

Bella glanced at me for a moment, curiosity evident in her expression. "Is it that bad?" she asked again.

"Just promise me."

She nodded, her eyes meeting mine as she answered. "You have my word."

I nodded to myself. Maybe it wasn't much, but I had done what I could to protect the Blacks. Bella had given me her word, and I felt I could trust her to keep it. Still, I had a feeling that Bella wasn't going to be too happy that I had discovered the truth. Would she be angry at me for knowing? Would my revelation bring our strange friendship to an end? Suddenly, knowing her secret made me feel guilty, like I had violated her privacy somehow, and the thought of upsetting her made me feel slightly ill.

"I'll promise you something, too," I offered, hoping that I could somehow smooth over what I was about to tell her. "If I happen to guess right one of these times, it won't go any farther than the two of us. No matter what, I promise I won't tell anyone else."

I watched her until she turned her face back to mine, until our eyes met. I wanted her to know that I meant it. She nodded faintly, the curiosity in her eyes growing. There was something else in her expression, too. Wariness, perhaps? But she turned back to the road before I could identify it. I allowed myself another moment to sort out what to say, then decided that the best place to start was usually at the beginning.

"You know that some of us were going to First Beach on Saturday," I began. Bella nodded. "While we were there I ran into a couple of old friends—Jacob and Josie Black. They live on the reservation. Our mothers were friends back when we were little kids, but we haven't seen each other in a while. We were catching up, talking about old times—things we used to do, stories their father used to tell about the tribe, and they told me one I hadn't heard before . . ." I paused, knowing that I had reached the point of no return, "about the cold ones."

I glanced back over to Bella's face, trying to gauge her reaction, but it was emotionless, her expression completely blank. Her eyes were glued to the road.

"The cold ones," she said after a moment. It wasn't a question. Her voice was eerily flat, devoid of any emotion and impossible to interpret.

"That's what the Quileutes call vampires," I explained, but I was fairly certain that she already knew that.

The silence in the car was deafening. It couldn't have lasted for longer than ten seconds, but it seemed to go on forever. I tried to focus on the purr of the Ferrari's engine as I watched her face, waiting for a reaction, for some clue as to what she was thinking, but her lovely features were frozen into an expressionless mask.

"And this made you think of me?" she asked quietly, her eyes never leaving the road.

"Not exactly." I wasn't innocent. I would have to admit my own guilt in seeking out the truth. "Your family isn't very popular in La Push. Ever since Dr. Cullen started working at the hospital, no one from the reservation will go there, and when your father started working at the police station, Jim Benson quit his job and refused to work with him. I asked them if they knew why."

Several more seconds passed in silence.

"And that's what they told you." Again, it wasn't a question. Her voice was hollow, empty, not at all like it had sounded only moments before. Her expression still hadn't changed. It hurt me to see her face so blank, without a smile on her lips or laughter dancing in her eyes.

"They don't believe it," I explained, trying to reassure her of their innocence. "They think it's just some stupid story that's been passed down for generations. They were afraid I'd make fun of them for telling it."

"Do you believe it?" she asked. She was still frozen. She hadn't so much as blinked.

I watched her carefully, my eyes glued to her face as I waited for the reaction that still hadn't come. "Yes," I told her.

She seemed to come alive at that. She whipped her head around to face me, her topaz eyes ablaze.

"Then why on earth are you in a car with me, Edward? It's Tuesday! If you've believed this of me since Saturday, then why are you here with me now?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" I asked, caught off guard by her sudden reaction.

"Edward, you believe that I'm a monster, yet you're perfectly willing to sit in a car with me?" She was staring at me incredulously, as though she thought I'd lost my mind.

"You've saved my life a couple of times over. Why wouldn't I get in a car with you?" She directed her gaze back out through the windshield and frowned.

"Vampires don't go around saving people's lives, Edward." A flash of something . . . annoyance . . . or disgust, maybe . . . crossed her features. Then, in an instant, it was gone, leaving something softer, like sadness, in its wake . "Quite the opposite. You should know the stories."

"You're not like that," I said, watching her carefully.

She muttered something that sounded like "not at the moment," but I could have been mistaken. And then the car was silent once again.

I tried to make sense of her reaction, to understand what it was that she was feeling. "You're upset, but not because I know what you are. You're upset because . . . I'm sitting in a car with you?" Bella shook her head. Her frown deepened for a moment, but she didn't turn to look at me.

"Shouldn't you be desperate to avoid me now that you know the truth? Isn't that the logical reaction?" Her voice sounded odd. It was quieter, softer now that her outburst was over, yet it sounded almost . . . fragile.

I studied her beautiful face, trying to imagine never seeing it again. "No," I answered truthfully.

Bella shook her head, her eyebrows lowering as she wrestled with some unknown thought. I studied her for several more moments as she stared ahead at the pavement. She was still upset. I wanted to reach out to her, to comfort her in some way, but I wasn't sure that the gesture would be welcome. I didn't know what to do.

"I'm sorry," I finally said. She turned her head to stare at me.

"You're sorry?" Her eyes moved over my face, her eyebrows lowering in confusion.

"I'm sorry it upsets you that I know the truth." And I was. It killed me to see her like this. I almost wished I could take it back, go back in time and tell her another stupid theory about mythology instead. Then her eyes would be bright with laughter, instead of dim with sadness, the way they were now.

She turned her gaze back to the road, and I watched her drive for a few moments. Her expression didn't ease. I knew I had no hope of making her laugh, not tonight, but I couldn't stand to see her so unhappy. If I could get her to talk, maybe I could at least coax a smile or two out of her.

"So, how does it all work?" I finally asked.

She sighed. "I'm sure you already have the basic idea." I could hear a note of sarcasm in her voice, but I didn't feel the sting of it. It felt more like she meant to direct it toward herself.

"So you're . . . immortal, but you're technically . . . dead?" I asked.

The corner of her lip twitched slightly. "Something like that," she said. Even in sadness, her face was excruciatingly lovely in the faint glow of the dashboard lights. It made me wonder how she would look in candlelight, which made me wonder if she had ever lived in a time with only candles to light her world.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Seventeen," she responded simply. That hadn't been exactly what I'd meant.

"How long have you been seventeen?" I asked more carefully.

"A bit longer than most seventeen-year-olds," she answered sadly. She turned to look at me, her golden eyes troubled as she searched my face. I wondered what she was looking for as she studied my expression. A trace of fear, perhaps? Or revulsion? She wouldn't find either.

"I did some research over the weekend on . . . what you are." I didn't want to say the word. I was afraid it might upset her again.

"And what did you learn?" she asked after a moment.

"Nothing that sounded very believable."

She nodded faintly.

"It's all ridiculous, actually," I admitted, watching her face. "Like the whole sleeping in a coffin all day thing. You're in school during the day, so that can't be true."

"No, that's only a myth."

"A myth," I repeated. Her eyes were still sad. I considered that for a moment. "Do you even own a coffin?" I asked, raising one eyebrow. I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that one, and I was hoping my question was as ridiculous as it seemed. Apparently I was right. A weak smile touched the corners of her mouth, but it was gone just as soon. The sadness never left her eyes.

"I promise that I do not now, nor have I ever owned a coffin." She turned her head to study my face. "And we don't sleep. Ever."

"Really?" I asked, fascinated.

"No, never." Her gaze flitted to the road, then back to my face. I could see that something was happening behind her amber eyes, but I couldn't begin to guess what.

"What about being outside during the day? Being burned by daylight? You skip school on sunny days, but you're still there when it's cloudy."

"We avoid sunlight. It doesn't harm us, but if people saw us in direct sunlight, they'd know there was something . . . wrong with us." She turned back to face the road. Something in her face was almost . . . ashamed. I decided to let that question go. I'd get the details later.

"Bats? Garlic? Churches?" I asked. They seemed even more ridiculous now, so I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.

"Myths, all of them. Most of the old legends are . . . except for one thing." Her voice trailed off, becoming hollow once again. She didn't turn back to face me.

"Which one is that?" I asked, suddenly feeling cold.

"What we eat," she answered. Her voice was quiet again, so low that I could barely hear it.

"Jacob and Josie said that you and your family hunt animals and not . . . people."

"That's true, but even so their ancestors didn't trust us."

I thought back to Saturday, trying to remember the other stipulations of the treaty. "No, they still don't want you hunting on their land."

"Probably a wise decision on their part," Bella said quietly.

"Why? If you hunt animals . . ."

Bella sighed. "That's the general idea, but it doesn't mean that we're safe to be around." Her scowl deepened.

I watched her drive, her hands responding competently to the curves in the road. She was still driving faster than the posted speed limit, and while that didn't worry me quite so much anymore, I couldn't help but hate the fact that we were approaching home far too quickly. I didn't want this evening to end. I wasn't ready for it to be over.

"I don't understand," I said, and when Bella turned to face me, her eyes were darkened with something beyond sadness.

"Edward, I'm a monster," she said. It sounded like a lie to my ears. No matter how she said it, I could never believe that of her.

"But if you hunt animals, instead of people . . ." I argued.

"That doesn't mean I'm not a monster. It just means that I don't _want_ to be one. It doesn't change what I am." She shook her head and turned her eyes back to the road. "It's not nearly so easy as it must sound to you." She frowned again, staring out into the darkness while she collected her thoughts. "Imagine living off of stale bread and water, nothing but stale bread and water, over and over again, every day for the rest of your life. Now imagine there's this . . . chocolate cake sitting in front of you, and you want a piece of it so desperately, but you've sworn an oath to eat nothing but stale bread and water."

I thought about that for a moment, letting it sink in. "So, I'm the chocolate cake in this scenario," I ventured. Bella didn't answer, didn't even glance in my direction.

"We call ourselves vegetarians," she explained. "It's just our little inside joke. Animal blood—it isn't the same. It isn't . . . what we really want, but it helps to keep us strong. It helps us to resist . . . most of the time." Her tone had grown dark, ominous. "Sometimes we find it more difficult than others." I studied the strained expression on her face, finally feeling as though I understood.

"And now is one of those times," I guessed quietly.

"Yes," she answered, her eyes still focused on the road. I watched her, knowing that this beautiful creature beside me could end my life at any moment if she chose to do so. Logic screamed that I should be afraid, terrified for my life. Only I wasn't.

"But you aren't . . . hungry . . . or thirsty now," I told her, remembering what I'd thought of back at the restaurant.

"What makes you say that?" she asked, finally turning to look at me.

"Your eyes," I answered. "Whenever I'm upset about something, my mom always tries to feed me. She says it's a psychological thing, that eating is comforting, that you're always calmer on a full stomach. That's why you laugh more when your eyes are light. Because you're not as . . . thirsty then, and you're calmer."

A sad smile touched the corners of her mouth. "Only barely," she answered softly. I studied her for a moment, considering the color of her eyes.

"You and Alice didn't really go hiking this weekend, did you? You went hunting."

"Yes," she admitted. I studied her as she stared out at the darkened road.

"You were gone for longer than you said you'd be. I thought maybe . . . you weren't coming back." I wasn't sure where that admission had come from, but it surprised us both. I tried to soften it with a smile, like I was teasing her, but I wasn't.

"We've been back since Sunday," Bella told me. "Alice said we could stay longer, but I didn't want to. I didn't like being away from you . . . but I had to go, for a couple of reasons." I waited for her to explain but she didn't say any more.

"What reasons?" I asked after a moment.

She frowned faintly. "It's . . . a bit easier to be around you when I'm not thirsty, so I had to take care of that."

"And?" I prodded gently after another moment.

"And even aside from that, I'm dangerous for you." Her eyes flitted to my face. "Ever since I moved here, you seem to be jinxed. I'm the most dangerous thing in the world to you, and I've cursed you with bad luck. I spent the entire weekend terrified of what might happen." She smiled sadly. "Alice kept telling me that you would be fine, but I couldn't stop myself from worrying all the same."

"Then why haven't you been to school since . . ." I trailed off, answering my own question. "It's been sunny the last two days." Bella nodded. "If sunlight doesn't hurt you, then why don't you go out in it?" I asked, remembering my earlier intention to get more answers about Bella and sunlight.

She frowned. "Maybe I'll show you sometime. It's very difficult to explain."

I glanced down at my ankle as I considered her answer. It was still throbbing slightly from my mad dash down the alley, but I'd been so distracted by Bella that I'd completely forgotten it.

"You're wrong, you know. About the bad luck. It started long before you ever came to Forks."

"Then I must be the ultimate chapter in your ongoing streak of bad luck."

I studied her face. "I don't think that's true," I said after a moment.

"When you're a human, Edward, listing a vampire among your friends and acquaintances is about as close to the pinnacle of bad luck as you can get." I watched her for another moment, considering.

"You don't have a very good opinion of yourself, do you?" She looked away but said nothing. I waited a moment before I spoke again.

"It drove me crazy, too, you know," I admitted. "You haven't been at school, and it bothered me." I hesitated, but there didn't seem to be any point in holding back now. Weren't we giving up all our secrets tonight? "I drove through the school parking lot this morning to look for your truck, even though I was going to Seattle. I didn't know where you'd been . . . and I worried."

A frown slid over Bella's lips. Her eyebrows lowered, pinching down over her eyes. She seemed to be on the verge of tears, only her eyes were dry. She looked like she had that first day in the principal's office. "This is wrong," she whispered. Abruptly, she pulled the Ferrari over to the edge of the road and parked in a pull-off that I hadn't been able to see in the darkness. She twisted around in her seat to face me.

"What is it?" I asked, trying to understand her strange expression.

"This," she gestured between the two of us, drawing an invisible line with her fingertips. She shook her head as she spoke. "You shouldn't worry about me. You shouldn't care about me. You shouldn't even _think_ about me."

"You worry about me," I reminded her.

"That's my own problem. This,"—she gestured again—"this isn't right. You shouldn't think of me like that. You shouldn't think of me at all. You should just stay away from me, avoid me the way most people do."

Her eyes were tugging at me, that strange almost-crying expression twisting something painful in my gut. I wanted to reach out to her, to offer her whatever comfort I could, but her words told me that would only upset her more. Even so, I had to clench my hands into fists to resist the urge.

"I can't, Bella," I told her softly. "I'm in too deep. I can't just walk away now."

"Don't say that," she begged, her voice so low that it was almost a whisper. "Please, don't say that." She paused to close her eyes, and when she spoke again, her voice was stronger, but no less pleading. "I'm a monster, Edward. I'm the worst thing in the world for you."

"I don't care what you are, Bella," I said quietly. "It doesn't matter."

We watched each other for another moment before Bella looked away. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Her words were heavy, as though she were apologizing for so much more than just this one moment in time. Turning in her seat, she rested her forehead on the steering wheel and wrapped her arms around herself. I fought back the impulse to reach out to her again, to offer her another set of arms and a shoulder, but I knew she'd never accept them.

After a few tense moments, she lifted her head and pulled back out onto the road. Her expression was more guarded now. We passed the next few miles in silence.

"I hope you enjoyed the game," Bella said after a few minutes. Her voice was still strained, but it seemed as though she were trying to lighten the mood. I stared at her, trying to remember back three lifetimes to this afternoon at Safeco Field.

"Yeah, it was a good one, but we lost."

"I had heard they probably would."

I wanted to ask her just where she'd heard that, but I noticed where we were. We were passing by the "Welcome to Forks" sign that sat just inside town limits. I glanced down at my watch. It seemed like hours had passed since we'd left Port Angeles. In reality, it had taken less than thirty minutes.

"Will you be in school tomorrow?" I asked, hating that our time together this evening was coming to an end.

"Yes. The weather will be overcast again. And we both have a paper due in English." She turned to watch me, her eyes meeting mine. "I can save you a seat at lunch, if you'd like." Her eyes were wide, beguiling, begging me to say yes, but something in her tone was wary, as though she weren't quite sure of my answer.

"I'll be there," I told her, smiling weakly as she pulled up in front of my house.

As we stared out through the windshield at my front door, I thought of all that had happened since I'd left this morning. I felt like there were two worlds—the world here, inside Bella's car, where everything that had happened today existed, and a second world, the hazy, blurry one outside that didn't feel real anymore. If I stepped out of this car, would I suddenly wake to find that it had all just been a dream?

I lay my hand on the door handle, but I couldn't seem to make myself open the door and get out. We watched each other for a moment, neither willing to let the evening end.

"You've had a long day, Edward," Bella said after a few moments. "You need to go inside and get some sleep." I nodded reluctantly, finally forcing myself to open the door.

"I'll see you tomorrow," I told her.

"Tomorrow, then," she said. I turned to set one foot on the driveway outside, but Bella stopped me by saying my name. I turned in the instant that she leaned in closer, and we found ourselves face to face, with only inches between us. Her hair brushed against my cheek, and with it came a scent I'd never noticed before, a nearly intoxicating smell, the most beautiful perfume imaginable.

"Sleep well," she told me. As her breath fanned out across my face, her perfume hit me again, though much more concentrated this time.

"Good night," I answered as I fought against the urge to lean in closer for another sniff.

I closed the door and made my way up the walk, turning every few steps to look back at Bella as she watched me make my way toward the house. As I stepped up onto the front porch, I heard Bella rev the engine, and I turned to watch her disappear into the darkness. Suddenly, the night was very quiet. I opened the front door and stepped inside.

"Edward?" my mother called from the living room.

"Yeah, it's me." I walked toward the back of the house. She was curled up on the sofa with an issue of some medical magazine. The news was playing on the television, the volume turned down low.

"You're home soon. Chief Swan just called."

I stared at her blankly, trying to remember what she was talking about.

"Crazy luck, huh?" She shook her head. "A flat tire _and_ a flat spare. It was very kind of him to take care of it, though, and so nice of Bella to give you a ride home." There was a speculative tone in her voice. I recognized it, but I hadn't gotten my bearings enough to care.

"Yeah," I said, feeling lost. "She just dropped me off." I turned my head back toward the front door, but I wasn't sure what I was looking for.

"He said he'd have your car home in about an hour. The tires just need air. Once he gets them pumped back up, he'll bring it by." She frowned up at me. "Are you okay? You look tired."

"Yeah. I'm just . . ." I glanced toward the stairs. "It's been a long day. All that driving . . . I'm beat. I'm going to head upstairs to bed."

She studied me for a moment, the thoughtful frown still on her face. "Okay, you get some sleep. I'll still be up when Chief Swan brings your car by." I froze for an instant. There was no way I could face Chief Swan now, not after the conversation I'd just had with Bella. Reality was too much. I was feeling more and more drained by the minute.

"Can you . . . thank him again for me? Really, you have no idea what a life saver he is."

She smiled. "Don't worry about it. Just get some sleep." I nodded and headed toward the staircase as we called our goodnights to each other. I could feel her eyes following me as I made my way around the corner.

I trudged up the stairs automatically, my mind still overwhelmed by a sense of unreality. I prepared for bed without registering what I was doing, finding myself in the shower several minutes later with no real memory of going into the bathroom at all. I realized suddenly that I ached all over, from the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet. My ankle was throbbing, and I felt more tired than I had ever been in my entire life.

I limped out of the bathroom and back into my bedroom, wincing as I stepped on something hard with my bare foot. Leaning down, I picked up a pen that had rolled off the edge of my desk. It was one I never used, a ridiculously expensive one that had been part of a desk set my father had given me for my fifteenth birthday, but as I stared down at its bright brassy finish, I wasn't thinking of my father; I was remembering the dull brassy color of the bullets I'd seen lying in the alley.

Now that I was no longer preoccupied with running for my life, now that I could process something beyond Bella's sudden and unexpected appearance, I realized that there was something wrong with my memory of those bullets. They had been in perfect condition, save the fact that the shiny finish had been burnt off. They'd shown no signs of impact, no cracks or flattened surfaces. How could a bullet be fired and not hit anything? I didn't have an expert's understanding of physics, but if they had hit something that they couldn't penetrate, wouldn't they have ricocheted off or shattered into several pieces on impact? I wasn't sure which would happen, but I knew two bullets couldn't just stop in midair and fall to the ground. That was impossible. I sat down on the edge of my bed and considered the only other explanation I could come up with.

Vampires were fast, I knew, and strong. Could a vampire catch a speeding bullet? I didn't know, but even if it were possible, neither Bella nor her father could have caught those bullets today. If either of them had, it would have placed them in the alley in front of my attackers, and not behind them, as they had been when Carlos and the others had come running past me only seconds later. No, whatever had stopped them, it hadn't been Bella or Chief Swan. So, what was it, then?

Giving up on solving the mystery before I got some sleep, I lay the pen down beside my alarm clock and promised myself that I'd figure it out later. I crawled into bed and pushed it firmly out of my mind.

I was tired, so very tired, but I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, images from the day played out behind my eyelids, and Bella's words echoed in my mind. I tossed and turned for what seemed like hours, the endless parade of words and images twisting and running together until only three coherent thoughts remained.

First, Bella was a vampire; it may have seemed like some strange, surreal fantasy, but I knew now, without a doubt, that it was the truth. Second, no matter how safe and civilized she appeared to be on the surface, somewhere deep down inside, some part of her craved my blood. And third, I was falling in love with her, falling hard, and what she was and what she wanted from me didn't matter in the least.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

**Edward hasn't figured the bullets out yet, but have any of you? Any theories out there?**

**BTW, the factual error in the last chapter is that the Mariners don't play any games in Seattle until later in the spring. At the point this story takes place, they'd still have been playing in Phoenix. I was afraid someone would call me on that one . . .**


	10. CENTER STAGE (INTERROGATIONS)

Wow, _wow_, WOW! A huge_ thank you_ for the great reviews I've received since my last update and for everyone who has added this story to their favorites! And thank you for the mention on A Different Forest! To everyone who has stumbled across this story since my last update, I hope you enjoy it! When I started writing this, I never imagined I would ever post it, and then when I posted it, I never imagined more than two or three people would ever be interested enough to read it. You guys are great! Thank you, thank you!

10. CENTER STAGE  
_(INTERROGATIONS)_

I had only managed to get a couple of hours of sleep by the time the alarm clock woke me the next morning. It took a few seconds for the events of the night before to come back to me, but when they did, they pushed every other thought out of my mind. Jumping out of bed, I stumbled across the floor toward the front window. Down below, barely visible in the gray light of the foggy morning, my car was sitting in the driveway, though not in the position I usually left it in. I stared down at it for another moment, then turned and hurried back to my bedroom to get dressed.

I barely bothered with breakfast in my eagerness to leave for school. I was too excited to eat, anyway. I was making good time, running a few minutes ahead of schedule, but as I reached up to the key peg on my way out the door, I discovered that my car keys were missing. I did a quick scan of the kitchen and the living room, hoping to find them on a countertop or an end table, but I came up empty-handed. I didn't know where my mother had left them the night before, but I didn't want to waste any more time looking, so I hurried back upstairs for the spare key I kept in my desk drawer and headed out the front door.

As I stepped outside into the icy mist, I could see that the fog was thicker than I had anticipated. Glancing off into the distance, I tried to judge how much visibility I might have on the drive in to school. I wasn't paying any attention to my car or what was around it as I walked down the sidewalk; that was why I completely missed seeing Bella until I'd nearly bumped into her.

She was standing by the driver's side door of my car, wearing a cream colored top and a pair of designer jeans that clung to the curves of her body like a dream. Mahogany curls spilled down over the shoulders of her leather jacket. Everything about her was absolutely perfect, but I couldn't seem to pull my eyes away from her face, from the beautiful golden hue of her irises or the soft and mysterious smile that played across her lips. I studied her expression, trying to come up with some explanation for her being at my house this early in the morning. Her smile seemed warm and friendly, but it gave no clue as to why she was there.

"Good morning," she said.

"Good morning," I answered, finally managing to pull my eyes away from her face long enough to glance over at my car. The engine was running. "I thought your father brought the car back last night," I said, confused. I'd been sure I'd heard him as I'd lain awake in bed.

"He did. But it's a bit chilly out this morning, and I thought you might be more comfortable if your car was already warmed up before you drove in to school."

"Oh." Was that why she was here? To warm up my car? "Thanks," I said.

"It may be a bit forward of me," she began, sounding almost hesitant, "but could I ride with you to school?"

I could have sworn I felt my heart skip a beat. "Sure," I said, trying to sound nonchalant, but it took every ounce of control I had to keep my feet from rushing as I walked around the front of my car to open the passenger's side door for her. When I glanced back up, she was smiling across the hood at me. I couldn't have stopped myself from smiling back if my life had depended upon it.

I closed the car door behind her and took my place behind the wheel. As I pulled out onto the street, I wondered how I should interpret her presence this morning—and her request for a ride to school. A lot of things had been said the night before, on both sides, but Bella had never admitted to more than worrying about me, and she had seemed deeply upset by the idea that I might care for her. Still, the fact that she was there, that she had come to my house and warmed up my car for me had to mean something, didn't it? I had to at least have a chance. Maybe she didn't feel about me the way I did about her, but that didn't mean she couldn't, or that she wouldn't. I'd just have to work on it.

I risked a couple of cautious glances in her direction as I drove down the foggy street. She seemed to be doing the same, watching me out of the corner of her eye. I was trying to decide what to say when she broke the silence.

"Are you sure this is okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said, offering her a smile. "This is okay." She didn't smile back this time, but she was watching me.

"I was afraid you might have second thoughts this morning, after last night."

I shook my head. "No, no second thoughts."

I stopped at a stop sign, glancing over at her as I checked both ways for oncoming traffic. Was that it? Was that why Bella had been at my house so early this morning? To find out if I was having second thoughts? I was considering the implications of that when another thought came to mind. Just how had she gotten to my house, anyway?

"Did one of your cousins drop you off on the way to school?" I wasn't sure exactly where Bella lived, but the Cullens lived north of town, on the other side of the school from where I lived. If she'd caught a ride into town with one of them, they would have had to have gone past the school to get to my house and then driven back.

Bella shook her head. "No, I didn't ride in with one of my cousins." She didn't add anything else, but she was watching me again, a faint frown on her lips. What was she thinking? What was she not telling me? I was sure I hadn't seen her truck parked on the street when I pulled out of my driveway, and I couldn't have missed her Ferrari. Even if I hadn't known it was hers, it would have been impossible to overlook on my little street.

"So, how did you end up at my house?" I asked.

Her eyes seemed . . . uncertain. "I ran over," she said carefully.

"You . . . ran over?" I asked, thinking I had misheard her. She nodded. Obviously, there was a lot more to know about Bella than what I had discovered the night before.

"How long did that take? Just out of curiosity."

"A couple of minutes," she answered cautiously.

I remembered her speed back in January, when she had come from the other side of the parking lot to push me away from Tyler's van. It wasn't an answer I had been expecting, but it still made perfect sense. I nodded, then glanced back over to find a strange expression on her face as she studied me. Curiosity got the better of me.

"What are you thinking?" I asked.

"I'm surprised that you seem to be handling this so well. Knowing what I am, that is," she answered, narrowing her eyes ever so slightly. "And I'm trying to decide whether or not that's a good thing."

"Well, I guess it's better than me freaking out, right?" I said as I turned into the Forks High School parking lot. She was still watching me as I pulled into my regular spot and turned off the engine.

"I don't know," she answered.

There were a few students standing around in the parking lot, but they were used to my car, so they ignored me completely. Several heads turned and took notice, though, when Bella opened the passenger's side door and stepped out. As I came around the car to her side, I noticed Jessica and Lauren standing under the overhang of the cafeteria roof. I saw Bella follow my gaze toward them. Then she turned her face back to mine.

"Lauren and Jessica," I said quietly. "Two of the biggest contributors to the Forks High School gossip mill. We'll be the talk of the school by lunch." Bella frowned faintly.

"Does that bother you?" she asked. I turned back to face her and shook my head.

"No. It won't be the first time I was a major news event, and I'm sure it won't be the last. In a school this small, everybody has to take a couple of turns as the center of attention." I smiled down at her as we started in toward the school. "What about you?" I asked, nodding my head toward where Jessica and Lauren were watching us with wide eyes. "Is this okay with you?"

Bella smiled, obviously at ease. "We usually don't pay much attention to idle gossip, especially not the mundane who-drove-who to school type."

As we stepped out of the parking lot and up onto the sidewalk, I realized that Jessica and Lauren weren't the only people watching. All around me conversations were trailing off into silence. I could practically feel it as people stopped to stare. Ignoring them, I glanced down at my watch. Classes would be starting in a matter of minutes, but I wasn't ready to leave Bella's side just yet.

"What's your first class?" I asked.

"Calculus," she answered. I considered the possibility of walking her to class before heading to English, deciding that I still had more than enough time. "Where are you going?" she asked as I started off toward her first class.

"Calculus," I said, smiling back over my shoulder at her. Barely a heartbeat later, she had already caught up to me. There was a faint smile playing at the corners of her lips.

"Building three is in the other direction," she pointed out, but even I could tell by the sparkle in her eyes that her heart wasn't in it. "You might be late for class."

"Then I'll walk fast," I told her with a teasing smile. She smiled back gently, her eyes softening.

We were silent for the next few moments, content to share each other's company as we ignored the stares of the students we passed by on the sidewalk. We came to a stop outside of her building, and I opened the door for her.

"I'll see you at lunch," she said as she stepped inside.

"Okay." I watched her walk away as the door closed between us, then, not even bothering to hide the smile on my face, I hurried back toward English.

As I walked up the center aisle toward my usual seat, I could hear the normal pre-class chatter dropping into hushed whispers. Apparently the gossip mill at Forks High School didn't need the extra boost provided by Lauren and Jessica. It worked just fine on its own. The whispers stopped when Mr. Mason called class to order, but I could still feel the curious gazes of my classmates long after we had turned in our papers. I glanced back over my shoulder once, just to see if it was my imagination or if people really were staring. Nearly everyone looked away guiltily.

Government passed by with the same annoying feeling of being watched, and as I walked into Trig, I could see that Jessica had been eyeing the door, waiting for my arrival. Thankfully, her seat was on the other side of the classroom, so I didn't have to sit through an hour of being interrogated. Still, I could imagine her tabulating a list of questions to spring on me the moment the opportunity presented itself. And I was right. She wasted no time in catching up to me on the sidewalk on our way to Spanish.

"So, how was the game yesterday?" she asked. We both knew she didn't care a bit about the Mariners. She was just trying to soften me up before the interrogation began.

"It was good," I told her, wondering how long she would tiptoe around with small talk before getting down to what she really wanted to know. What wild speculations were running through her head? Was she wondering if Bella and I were secretly dating? Since Bella had been absent from school the day before, would Jessica put those two facts together and assume that we had both skipped school to go to the game together?

"Did you go by yourself?" she asked. She was trying to sound casual, only slightly interested, but it looked like I already had Jessica's line of thinking pegged. It was hard not to smile at her predictability.

"I was supposed to go with my father, but he couldn't make it." Disappointment showed in her eyes. She thought I'd taken Bella. "Too bad he didn't get a chance to send me his ticket. If he had, I wouldn't have had to go alone."

"Oh," Jessica said. I didn't miss the relief in her tone. She waited for another moment before continuing. "I saw you giving Bella Swan a ride to school this morning." I nodded, then let her sweat for a moment as I held the door for a couple of people who were following us into the building. She waited impatiently for them to go by and followed me toward our seats, which were, unfortunately, side by side.

"So," she began, glancing around suspiciously, probably concerned that someone else might pick up on the news she was working so hard to get and steal it from her before she could pass it on herself, "are you two . . . together?"

I'd known the question was coming, but it made me feel strangely uncomfortable . . . and nervous. Bella had secrets, big secrets, and even though she didn't seem to be all that concerned about high school gossip, I couldn't deny that her being the center of attention, for whatever reason, made me edgy. I had discovered her secret easily enough—all it had taken was time and a little digging. If anyone else got curious enough, could they uncover the truth as well? I reached over to pull a notebook out of my backpack and considered my possible responses. Jessica was still suffering from her misplaced crush on me, and she was jealous. Anything I said to her about Bella would only add fuel to the flames and make her that much more likely to talk. But then an idea popped into my head; maybe I could encourage her affections in another direction.

"Hey, what about you and Mike?" I asked. Jessica's mouth dropped slightly open and then closed again. "I was just wondering," I said, shrugging lightly. "He's wanted to ask you out for a while now, and I heard he had." Flustered, Jessica could only nod. She wasn't used to anyone turning the tables on her. The bell rang, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mrs. Goff heading toward the front of the class. I turned to face the front of the room, trying to look like the perfect student. By the time Jessica had recovered from her surprise, class had already started.

I managed to evade her questions for most of the hour by pretending to be deeply occupied with taking notes. In reality I was paying more attention to her than I was to Mrs. Goff, monitoring her expressions out of the corner of my eye. Whenever the look on her face grew determined enough that I thought she was about to ask me something, I would draw Mrs. Goff's attention in our direction by asking a question. It was the coward's way out, and I knew it, but I was stalling for time. When the bell rang for lunch, Jessica didn't waste a moment.

"So, what about you and Bella Swan? Are you dating?"

Wondering if I could somehow ignore her all the way to the cafeteria, I gathered up my notes and turned to put them in my backpack, but then I realized that if I gave Jessica no details at all, Lauren would just make up something to fill in the blanks. And if Lauren had free rein to make up details, there was no telling what ridiculous story she might concoct. I took my time reorganizing my backpack and reconsidered. Maybe the boring truth—or at least the most boring parts of the truth—would help keep the gossip to a minimum.

"I'm not really sure what we are, Jess," I told her truthfully as I stood and adjusted my backpack on my shoulders.

"Well . . . do you like her?" she asked, walking sideways because she didn't want to take her eyes off my face. She was analyzing my expression, I could tell. And not just for the sake of gossip. In that moment, I knew exactly how to spin it.

"Yeah," I admitted, giving Jessica the honest answer. "I do."

Her face fell, then grew slightly hopeful as suspicion lit her eyes. "So . . . why aren't you dating? Is she . . ." Jessica trailed off, hoping I would fill in the blanks with more details.

"Not as into me as I'd like her to be," I supplied with a genuine frown.

And there it was. The classic story of the boy pursuing the girl who wasn't quite as interested in him as he was in her. Jessica's crush on me was proof that it was a common enough scenario in high school to be believable. And, unfortunately, in my case it was entirely true.

As we stepped out of the classroom, I could see Jessica opening her mouth to ask me another question, but then my eyes caught sight of Bella standing just outside the classroom door, looking as beautiful and as perfect as ever, with a smile so bright that it could have outshone the sun. I saw Jessica turn her head and catch sight of Bella, but where she went or what she did after that I didn't notice or care. My attention was focused elsewhere.

"Hey," I said, smiling back. I glanced around at the crowds filing past us on their way to lunch and leaned in closer. "Should I ask how you got here so fast?"

"Coach Clapp let us out of Gym early," she explained. I nodded, wondering how on earth she managed to look so perfect right after Gym, without a wrinkle in her clothes or a strand of hair out of place.

As we made our way toward the cafeteria, a sea of faces turned to stare at us. People were so predictable. And so nosey. I was conscious of the stares, of the eager ears following us down the sidewalk, hoping to overhear something interesting. I could practically feel the people behind of us breathing down our necks.

"Not much chance of a private conversation," I muttered to Bella. She just smiled and shook her head.

I tried to get her to go first as we went through the lunch line, but she shook her head and gestured for me to go on. As we filed through the serving line, I watched her out of the corner of my eye, curious to see what she would do. I was surprised to see her copying me, filling her tray with the exact same things that I was getting. Heads turned to follow our progress as we made our way across the cafeteria to the deserted table where we had eaten the previous Thursday. Even if they hadn't noticed our lunch together then, people were noticing now. The news of our arrival at school together this morning had thrust us into the spotlight. I glanced over at Bella's tray and frowned.

"Why did you get so much?" I asked after we had taken a seat. "You aren't going to eat any of it."

"I can't look like I don't eat," she answered. "I chose things that I thought you might like. You didn't have much for breakfast, so I'm sure you must be hungry." I frowned across the table at her, wondering how she knew what I'd had for breakfast.

I lifted a slice of pizza off my plate and took a bite. Bella had been right. I was hungry. Across from me, I watched as she twisted the cap off her water bottle and pretended to take a drink. To a casual observer, the gesture would look perfect. I was the only one sitting close enough to notice the unchanging level of water in the bottle. As I glanced across the cafeteria to where her cousins sat, I could see that they were picking at their food. Rosalie was even lifting a spoon to her lips. It was perfectly choreographed. It would take someone watching them for the entire lunch period to figure out that it was only for show, and even then they would have to be looking for it. And yet, I had figured it out, hadn't I?

"What if somebody notices that you don't eat?" I asked. Bella glanced toward her cousins' table and shook her head.

"No one watches us that closely. We make people uncomfortable, so they're much happier pretending that we aren't even there."

I considered that as I ate. She was right about the Cullens making people uncomfortable. How many times had I heard someone refer to them as "strange?" Or "creepy?" Or "weird?" But Bella didn't seem weird or creepy to me. She was just . . . beautiful.

"Why is that?" I asked, taking a drink of my Coke.

"Nature," she answered. "They may not consciously recognize what we are, or even believe that what we are could exist, but instinct still tells them to stay away." A frown crossed her lips as she glanced back toward her cousins' table. "A mouse may never have seen a cat before, but it still knows when to run." She turned her golden eyes back to my face. "But, as they say, there's an exception to every rule."

She'd lost me. I swallowed the last bite of pizza I was chewing and shot a questioning look across the table at her.

"You," she explained. "You don't react the way other people do. You aren't afraid of us." She frowned faintly.

I shook my head, studying her for a moment before speaking. "I know what you are, Bella, but I also know _who_ you are, and that just. . . overrides everything else."

She averted her eyes to frown down at my plate. After a few seconds I followed her gaze to find another slice of pizza sitting in front of me. Bella's pizza had disappeared from her tray, but I hadn't even seen her move it. She nodded encouragingly, and I opened my mouth to argue, but the dazzling smile that lit her features tore down any resistance I might have had. What was the point in arguing? She wasn't going to eat it anyway. I shook my head and bit into the pizza as Bella skimmed her eyes over the tables on the other side of the cafeteria.

"Lauren and Jessica don't seem very happy to see us together," she commented, a mischievous grin sliding over her lips. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Jessica turning her head away. Lauren was glaring down at the tabletop, a scowl etched into her features.

I paused to take another drink of my Coke and winced. "Jessica . . . has a bit of a crush on me," I admitted, surprising myself by telling Bella the truth. "Right now she's probably hoping you'll dump me so she can help put the pieces of my broken heart back together." Bella smiled faintly. "Lauren's ego took a severe beating the day I turned down her invitation to the dance, which is why I know the gossip she's going to spread about us will be even more malicious than usual." The faint smile flashed across Bella's lips again.

"Hell hath no fury," she quoted.

"Pretty much," I agreed, glancing back over my shoulder. Lauren and Jessica were huddled together now, whispering to each other. I watched them for a few seconds before turning back.

"Jessica did seem rather annoyed when she saw me waiting for you after class," Bella said, sounding amused.

"I think you ruined her plans. She was in the middle of pumping me for information." I couldn't help but smile a little.

"What did you tell her?" she asked.

"Not much. When she asked me before class, I changed the subject to her date with Mike Newton and let her sweat a little." The corners of Bella's lips curled up in amusement for a few seconds, then fell. Her amber eyes focused on mine.

"She asked you again after class," she said, and I nodded. "I heard some of what you told her." At my questioning look, she reached up to trace a finger along the outline of her ear. To anyone watching us, it would appear as though she had just tucked a strand of hair out of the way, but I understood what she was telling me. Apparently super-human hearing was another vampire trait.

"Do you have x-ray vision, too?" I asked, only half joking. Bella shook her head but didn't smile.

"You told her that you liked me," she continued. That had to be the understatement of the century, but I nodded. "You sounded as though you didn't believe that I felt the same way."

I watched her as the seconds ticked by. Part of me wanted to tell her the truth about how I felt, but another part of me urged caution. I didn't know how she might react, and I couldn't risk scaring her away before I had a chance of her returning my feelings. It was best to take it slow, to not push her farther or faster than she was willing to go. I shook my head. "It isn't that . . . not exactly."

Her eyebrows lowered slightly. "I don't understand." I looked away for a moment as I decided how to phrase my answer.

"I know that you . . . worry about me," I said carefully. "And you obviously don't mind my company." Bella blinked and narrowed her eyes.

"You make it sound as though you honestly believe that I don't care about you."

I shook my head. "Well, you obviously do . . . to some extent, but last night you didn't seem very happy with the idea that I might feel something for you, and I assumed that meant it was . . . mostly one-sided." I waited for her answer as she considered what I had said.

"Then I owe you an apology," she said after a moment. "It appears that I left you with a mistaken impression last night about the nature of my feelings for you. You misunderstood. I _do_ care. Far more than I should. Far more than I have a right to."

She looked away, her eyes flickering down to the tabletop between us. There was something rising in me, a feeling that my heart could leap right out of my chest. Was it possible, then? Had I misjudged? Did Bella already return my feelings? Certainly not to the same degree, no, but if she cared for me, even in the slightest, wasn't there a chance . . .

"So why all the talk about how I should walk away and never look back?" I asked.

Her eyes, sad but breathtakingly beautiful, looked back up into mine. "Because it's what's best for you," she said. "I care about you, Edward, and I want what's best for you, far more than anything I may want for myself."

I had to remind myself to breathe.

"And what do you want for yourself?" I asked after a moment.

Bella smiled sadly. "I care for you, Edward," she said simply. "Far more than you realize."

Suddenly I was fighting a battle to keep the smile off my face.

"I could say the same to you," I told her, but she just shook her head. Those golden eyes were on mine, and it felt as though they could see all the way down to my soul. We sat watching each other, our eyes trying to communicate something beyond words until Bella ended the moment by looking away.

"Is Saturday morning still convenient for you?" she asked, her eyes coming back to my face. I had to think for a moment to remember what she was talking about.

"For our breakfast date?" I smiled. "Yes." A stray doubt crept into my mind, and my smile slid into a frown. "Unless you want to cancel."

Bella shook her head. "No, I don't want to cancel."

I watched her for a moment, remembering my lunch as I considered our breakfast date still several days away. "Where did you want to go?" I asked, reaching down to pick up the apple from my plate. "The diner down on Main has some really great blueberry pancakes . . ." I trailed off, realizing that Bella wouldn't really care about blueberry pancakes.

She shook her head. "It's a surprise," she said, a mysterious smile creeping across her lips.

"A surprise . . . okay," I agreed when she didn't say anything else. "So are we . . . both eating breakfast? Or just one of us?"

A look of horror crossed Bella's face, and I realized too late what my question must have sounded like. Closing my eyes, I grimaced and shook my head. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded, I swear." After a moment of silence, I heard the beautiful tones of her laughter.

"You will be eating breakfast," she clarified. "I will be keeping you company."

"I see," I answered. I shook my head. "I just meant . . . you have certain . . . nutritional needs . . ." I trailed off, at a loss. It was Bella's turn to grimace. Her gaze flickered to the other side of the room and back again.

"I won't be taking care of those Saturday morning," she assured me. I nodded, a new thought coming to mind. I studied her face for a moment, trying to gauge her mood before I voiced it. As always, my search left me clueless.

"So . . . you hunt," I began, not sure how to word all of the things I was wondering. Bella nodded cautiously. "You just go out and . . . kill something whenever you're thirsty?" I asked.

Bella gave a faint nod. She was watching me carefully. Was she shy? Did she not want to talk about this? Or was she still waiting for me to freak out?

I shook my head. "We don't have to talk about this if you don't want to. I was just curious."

She studied me for another moment, then frowned. "No, it's okay. I'm still waiting for you realize what we're talking about and react appropriately."

I shook my head again. "Not even close to freaking out, sorry." I smiled across the table at her. "I just . . . the modern movie take usually involves someone having a connection to the blood bank. Since your uncle is a doctor, I just assumed . . ." I let the comment go as Bella made a face. "I guess not."

"It's not a very appealing idea." She paused for a moment, an expression on her face that seemed . . . pensive. "Donated blood is kept for days, weeks even, if circumstances allow for it."

I pondered over that, trying to draw a parallel in my own life. "So it's kind of like the two week old leftovers you find shoved behind the milk in the back of the refrigerator, right?"

Bella smiled. "I guess that's an accurate enough comparison."

I nodded. "And you prefer . . . fresh." It felt odd to say it, like I was crossing some kind of line. Bella grimaced and looked away. I decided it was probably best not to pursue that particular topic.

"So is this a daily thing?" I asked instead. Bella pulled her eyes back, apparently more at ease with the change in the direction of our conversation.

"We plan hunting trips every week or two. That seems to be the greatest length of time that any of us can comfortably manage."

"Every week or two?" I asked, surprised. I glanced down at my plate. Once every week or two seemed a lot more convenient than having to eat three square meals a day. Bella nodded.

"So you just . . . walk out into the woods somewhere . . ."

"We try to hunt in areas where game is more than sufficient. We don't want to negatively impact the environment. When we have time, we head out of state, to places where predators are overly abundant. There are some places along the West Coast, for example, where the mountain lion population has caused problems for humans."

"Mountain lions?" I asked, surprised. Bella shrugged. She looked almost apologetic. I thought back to that morning in January—to Bella's speed as she crossed the parking lot, her strength as she pushed the cars apart. All things considered, it really wasn't that hard to believe.

"Predators are a bit . . . tastier." She glanced toward her cousins' table and smiled faintly. "Emmett prefers grizzlies, so he likes to go hunting in the Goat Rocks Wilderness."

"Grizzlies," I said, momentarily surprised, but once I got used to the thought of Bella hunting mountain lions, the idea of Emmett hunting grizzlies wasn't all that hard to believe. If anyone could take down a grizzly, it was Bella's humongous cousin.

"Is that where you and Alice went this weekend?" I asked.

"No. We took a short trip north into Canada. It was more about having some . . . girl time than it was about hunting."

I had to smile at the image that came to mind. "So you sat around painting each other's toenails and killing things?" I asked. Bella laughed.

"Not exactly," she said with a strange little smile, but then it faded. "You make it sound harmless." Suddenly her face was very serious, and very sad. "We're not harmless."

She smiled then, not one of the warm, friendly smiles that she had been giving me all day, but a menacing one that exposed her teeth in a way that made me want to shudder. I tried to hold it in, but I didn't quite manage to. Those teeth were intimidating, and combined with speed and strength, it wasn't hard to imagine even Bella taking down a grizzly. No, not at all. But there was more to her than just speed and strength and really scary teeth.

"I think you underestimate yourself," I told her. I wondered what she might say to that, but her eyes flickered away from my face to focus on something over my shoulder. I glanced away to find that the cafeteria was almost empty; lunch was nearly over. Sitting here with Bella, I had completely lost track of the time.

"Time's up," I sighed. Bella simply frowned across the table at me as we stood to leave.


	11. TOUCH (COMPLICATIONS)

I want to thank everyone who has reviewed this story! You guys are great! And thanks for hanging in there while I fought with the first part of this chapter - my goal was to get it posted by the end of September, and I just barely missed it. :(

11. TOUCH  
_(COMPLICATIONS)_

The walk from the cafeteria to Biology was a blur. If the speculative looks of the other students continued, I didn't notice them; I was too caught up in Bella to pay attention to anything else.

As we took our seats in class, Bella slid her chair sideways toward the center of the table and smiled shyly at me. Gone were the days when she had leaned away, her chair pushed to the edge of the aisle; she was so close to me now that I could almost feel her arm brushing against mine. I smiled back at her and wondered how I would ever manage to pay attention to another one of Mr. Banner's boring lectures again. How could I, when Bella was smiling at me that way?

The pre-class chatter quieted abruptly, and I turned toward the doorway to see Mr. Banner pulling a scuffed metal cart with an outdated television and a VCR into the room. A movie day. Without a word of introduction he started the VCR and headed across the room toward the light switch.

But as the lights went out, everything changed. Bella was still barely a hair's breadth away, but in the semi-privacy of darkness, the distance between us seemed to be humming with some strange electric current. I could practically feel it dancing across the tabletop between us, and for a second I imagined myself reaching across that fraction of an inch and touching my hand to hers. It was all I could do to resist the urge, to shift back in my seat and cross my arms in front of me. This was going to be a long hour.

I turned my face toward the front of the room, but I wasn't paying any attention to the images playing across the television screen. My attention was focused entirely on Bella. While I had leaned back in my chair, she had leaned forward and sat with her arms crossed and her elbows resting on the tabletop. Like mine, her hands were clenched into fists. It took a few seconds for my eyes to discern in the flickering light of the television that Bella was watching me in much the same way that I was watching her, and she was leaning toward me ever-so-slightly, as if trying to lessen the distance our different postures had created between us. I buried my hands under my elbows, trapping them against my body in case they defied my orders and gave in to the urge to reach out to her.

I was right. It was a very long hour. I spent every second of it watching Bella out of the corner of my eye. I memorized the beautiful arch of her neck, the curve of her flawless cheek, the shape of the bones in her wrists. I studied the way the gentle waves of her mahogany hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back as I fought the relentless urge to reach out and brush a finger along her skin. By the time Mr. Banner turned the lights back on and stopped the movie, my muscles ached from the effort of holding myself still. I stretched and turned to face Bella.

"That was . . . interesting." She lifted one corner of her mouth faintly but didn't respond. Rising on stiff legs, I walked beside her through the classroom door.

"Where's your next class?" I asked.

"Spanish," she answered. "You have Gym, right?" I nodded as we turned down the sidewalk toward building seven. A funny little smile lit Bella's face as she walked along beside me, but she remained silent.

We stopped just outside the door to building seven and turned to face each other. A faint frown crossed Bella's beautiful features. What did her expression mean, I wondered? Was she as reluctant to part ways as I was? Was she standing there with her lower lip pulled between her teeth because she didn't want to go to Spanish any more than I wanted to go to Gym?

The faint breeze stirred again, pulling a lock of her hair out of place. I acted without thinking—or rather, I acted because I _had_ been thinking, for the past hour, about doing just this. It was a faint touch, barely even noticeable, but as I reached up to tuck the silky strand back behind her ear, Bella froze. She looked like a statue—unblinking, unmoving, not so much as breathing as her amber eyes, wide with something that might have been surprise, stared up into mine. And I stared back down into hers as I tried to remember how to breathe. One tiny brush of my finger against her ear and every single thought had left my head.

Her skin was cool, but I'd known it would be, and there was a smooth firmness to the shell of her ear that reminded me of porcelain, but it was the jolt of electricity that sizzled through my hand and up my arm that kept me breathless. It took a moment for me to drop my hand, pull air into my lungs, and step back. Bella blinked and shifted her weight slightly, but her eyes never narrowed. They were still wide and staring back into mine, some deep emotion stirring in their depths. I finally managed to find my voice.

"I'll see you after class," I told her, backing toward the gymnasium. My heart was still beating double-time, and I couldn't seem to take my eyes off of her. She nodded, staring back at me for a moment before she turned to make her way inside. Just before the door closed behind her, though, she stopped and glanced back at me. I saw the smile begin, almost shyly at first, and then breaking out across her face before the door closed between us and she was gone.

It wasn't until I was walking through the far gym doors that I realized I had already broken my promise to myself. I had touched her without her permission, had made the first move when I had decided to move at Bella's pace. But she hadn't protested, had she? She hadn't become angry or jerked away. The emotion I'd seen in her eyes . . . I didn't have a name for it, but I knew it wasn't anger or revulsion. And that smile, that smile on her face as the door had closed between us was like nothing I'd ever seen.

Emerging from the locker room moments later, I was unusually energetic, as though the electric current that had passed between us was fueling me. I spent the next forty minutes running around the badminton court, trying to burn off the excess energy. By the time Coach Clapp blew the whistle to end class, my overenthusiasm was catching up to me. My ankle was starting to complain about being forced to sprint back and forth, and my partner, Jennifer Ford, was giving me dirty looks because I'd barely given her a chance to play. Mike caught up to me just outside the locker room door.

"So, is it true?" he asked. "About you and the Swan girl?" _The Swan girl? _I frowned at his reluctance to use Bella's given name but kept the thought to myself.

"Is what true?" I asked instead.

"Jessica told me at lunch that you two are going out."

I sat down on a bench and leaned over to untie my shoelaces. Mike wasn't the gossip monger that Jessica was. He wasn't asking because he wanted to spread it around school; he was asking because the Cullens gave him the creeps. I smiled faintly to myself, thinking Bella would be happy to know that even if I didn't react to her family's presence the way that I should, Mike Newton's instincts were right on target.

"It's kind of a gray area," I told him, "but I'm working on it."

Mike frowned. "She's kind of . . ." _weird. _He didn't finish the sentence, but I knew what he was thinking. "Sometimes she gives me these looks . . . it's like I ran over her cat or something." That I had noticed. I'd meant to ask Bella about it the other day, but sometimes it was hard to keep my train of thought whenever she was around. I shrugged at Mike and headed for the showers.

Several minutes later, as I came back out of the locker room into the gymnasium, I caught sight of Bella standing just inside the main doors. She wouldn't be here waiting for me, would she, if my touch had made her feel in any way uncomfortable? I felt the smile breaking out across my face, but in the next second, it began to fade as I realized that Bella was studying the contents of the school's trophy case. Forcing the smile back in place, I made my way across the creaky wooden floor to her side.

"Hey." I could see what she was looking at now. The big golden cup on the left-hand side of the third shelf. My eyes flickered up to it for a second, then drifted away.

"Hello." She turned to me and smiled, and for one brief moment, I forgot all about the golden trophy and the name engraved on the front of it.

"So, how was Spanish?" I asked.

"Fairly boring and uneventful. How was Gym?" She turned toward the door, and I fell into step beside her, but I couldn't stop myself from taking one last glance back at the golden cup.

"About the same."

I opened the gymnasium door for her, and we made our way through the school parking lot toward my Volvo. Neither of us spoke as I opened the car door for her, then took my seat behind the wheel. I knew she had to have seen it, to have read my name on the placard on the front of it. It wasn't a secret, anyway. Anyone in Forks could have told her the story. I glanced across the car at her.

"Did you know?" I asked. Bella nodded.

"My cousins told me." Of course. The Cullens had already moved to Forks when it happened. They'd been here for some of the before . . . and the after. I nodded, wondering just what details she'd been given and how accurate they'd been. In the year and a half since it had happened, the story had been circulated over and over again, the tragedy of it exaggerating with every retelling.

"How much did they tell you?" I asked as I checked my mirrors and pulled out of the parking spot.

"Just that you ran track your freshman year. And that you broke state records, several of them."

I nodded, thankful that the version she'd heard didn't have me winning a spot on the US Olympics team or some other such nonsense, but there had been phone calls, dozens of phone calls from college athletics departments, all of them saying that they wanted to introduce themselves early, before I'd hit my prime. I was only a freshman, they told me, and already a wonder. I was only going to get better.

I stopped at the parking lot exit and glanced across the seat at Bella. "I can take you home. Where do you live?" She shook her head.

"Just take me to your house. I have a ride waiting there for me." I nodded and pulled out onto the highway, heading toward home.

"What did they tell you about what happened?"

Bella's eyebrows lowered, and she turned her head to glare out through the windshield.

"Mike Newton broke your ankle at football tryouts," she hissed through her teeth.

The sudden change in her tone caught me off guard. Stopping at the next intersection, I turned to stare at her. Her features had grown cold and hard, and every trace of the warmth that had been there only moments before had vanished. Something clicked into place. Was this it, then? Was _this_ why she disliked Mike Newton? Because she blamed him for what had happened to me? I turned my attention back to the road.

"Mike didn't do anything. It was an accident," I explained. "I was fast, too fast, I guess. Mike didn't see me coming and tackled Josh Coleman right in front of me. Josh went down on my leg, and with Mike's weight added to his, my ankle couldn't take the impact." The coldness had left her eyes, I noted, but she was frowning at me uncertainly. I shook my head.

"It really wasn't Mike's fault. It was just an accident." When I glanced back over at her again, there was a thoughtful frown crossing her features.

"I had assumed, from the tone of the newspaper article, that there was some negligence on Newton's part." She'd looked up old newspaper articles? I frowned.

"No, but I was the star of the track team, the town hero, and accidents are hard to accept." I shrugged. "I guess Forks had to find someone to blame, and Mike was the one they pointed at." Bella was silent, apparently considering my words. When she still hadn't spoken a moment later, I pulled my eyes away from the road to find her studying my face. She looked almost . . . confused.

"What?" I asked.

"I was just thinking that you don't seem like the football type." I gave a short, somewhat bitter laugh.

"I'm not." Bella's eyebrows lowered slightly in confusion. "I was only trying out because my father wanted me to," I explained. "He said football would look better to Harvard than track would."

I waited for her to say something else, but the car remained silent. How much more of the story did she know, I wondered? I couldn't remember how accurate the stories in the newspaper articles had been. I decided it was probably best to finish telling it myself.

"What happened with Mike wasn't permanent. It was a clean break, easy to set with no lasting damage. I'd have been back the next year, but then, right after I got the cast off, I slipped on some ice in the school parking lot." I frowned, remembering the pain.

"It was worse the second time around. The bone splintered, and it did a lot of damage. After they'd put it back together, when we realized how much worse it was than the first time, my father made appointments with every specialist he could find in Seattle, but they all agreed that there was nothing else that could be done, that Dr. Cullen had done just as well as any of them could have, under the circumstances." I smiled ruefully. "My father wasn't too happy about that, but with all of the doctors in agreement, there was no one for him to sue." I shook my head.

"It didn't really matter. I already knew my running days were over." Bella considered me for a moment in silence.

"You sound as though you miss it a great deal," she said softly.

"Yeah, I do." I shook my head. "I know it sounds pathetic, but it was . . . such a big part of my life that sometimes I can _feel_ it missing." I stopped and glanced over at Bella, certain that she'd be looking at me like I was crazy, but her eyes were soft, and there was a sympathetic smile on her lips that made me think she understood what it was to lose something that was so much a part of you that you weren't quite sure who you were without it.

"I'm sorry," she said gently, and I could feel, in the softness of her tone, that she really was.

"Thank you," I said, touched by the understanding in her voice but not quite sure what else to say. The car was silent for another moment before she spoke again.

"What did you like about it?" she asked. Her tone seemed almost . . . hesitant, as though she feared she might upset me by asking. I shook my head, searching for the right words.

"I liked . . . the freedom. The speed. The feel of the wind in my face and the ground under my feet. Sometimes I felt like . . . like I could just step up off the ground and fly. Like I was in a whole other world where I could just leave everything behind until I was ready to come back for it." I smiled sadly at the memory. Bella's eyes narrowed slightly.

"I guess that's why you prefer to use the other entrance to the gymnasium," she said after a moment, "the one that's farthest from the rest of the school. It's because the trophy case is by the school side entrance, isn't it?" I nodded.

"It's not that I have anything against the trophy case, really. I just . . . right after it happened, I couldn't stand to look at it. Now . . . I guess it's just habit." I made the turn onto my street and glanced over at her. Our time together was growing short, and I didn't want to waste any more of it on unhappy memories.

"So, anything interesting in your plans for the evening?" I asked as I pulled into my driveway.

"You mean, am I going to go home and try to figure out what _Lorenzo's Oil_ is about?" she asked, smiling slyly. I blinked, confused for a moment before I realized what she was talking about.

"Is that what movie it was?" I laughed. Bella nodded, smiling. "I think I saw that once, a long time ago."

"Me, too." She turned to glance back over her shoulder, and I followed her gaze, my eyes falling on the bright red paint of her truck parked along the street a few houses down. I frowned. I wasn't ready for her to leave so soon.

"I would have taken you home," I told her, but Bella shook her head.

"I really don't think you and my family are ready for each other yet." She smiled sadly.

_Yet?_ Did that mean she intended for me to eventually meet her family? Ah yes, her family. A whole house full of vampires. I knew Dr. Cullen, of course, had known him for years; he'd performed surgeries on my ankle. He seemed normal, safe enough, but what about the rest of them? What would they be like if they didn't have to pretend to be human? I pushed the thought aside. If Bella noticed any uneasiness on my part, I might never get the opportunity to meet them at all.

"I think I'm a pretty safe, normal kind of guy," I teased. "No piercings, no tattoos . . . no criminal record." Bella smiled again faintly.

"You are definitely a safe, normal kind of guy. My family, on the other hand . . ." She shook her head and glanced down to where her hand rested on the door handle. For a moment, I had to fight the urge to beg her to stay for just a little bit longer.

"I should probably go," she said, and by the time I had made it around the car, she was already standing outside. We stood facing each other, just as we had outside building seven.

"Could I ride to school with you again tomorrow morning?" Bella asked. Her voice sounded uncertain, as though she feared I might actually refuse her request.

"Yes," I told her. It was impossible to keep from smiling. "And every morning after that, if you want."

She blinked and smiled a smile that made me forget the grey clouds overhead and the sad things we'd just been discussing. It seemed to me that the sun was shining.

"Okay," she answered. We watched each other for another moment, smiling like fools, before she started to back away.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said as she stepped toward the street.

"Tomorrow," I told her, watching until she'd vanished into the cab of her truck and driven out of sight before I reached into the backseat of my car for my backpack. I couldn't resist the urge to lean forward, just to see if there was a faint whisper of her perfume still lingering on the upholstery of the front seat. There was. I was still smiling as I headed up the front walk.

. . . . .

As I came down the stairs the next morning, I wasn't thinking of anything but Bella. I knew she was outside, waiting for me in my car. Breakfast seemed like nothing but another annoying chore to be taken care of before I could join her. I was trying to decide what I could eat on the run when I discovered my mother standing at the kitchen stove with an apron tied around her waist and a spatula in her hand.

"Why are you up so early on your day off?" I asked as I crossed to the refrigerator and took out the orange juice. Since my mother was watching, I made sure I got a glass out of the cabinet instead of drinking straight from the carton like I usually did.

"Ellen and I are going to Port Angeles this morning to buy some things for Connie's baby shower Saturday. I thought I'd get going a little earlier, get some things done around the house." She smiled, clearly pleased with herself. "And I never get to make you breakfast anymore." She slid an omelet onto a plate and handed it to me. Knowing that Bella was waiting for me in my car, I pulled a fork out of the silverware drawer, grabbed the closest chair, and dug in just a bit too enthusiastically. My mother raised her eyebrows but didn't comment.

"I heard there's a dance at school Saturday night," she said instead as she pulled out the chair beside me. My mouth full of omelet, I nodded. "Are you going?"

I shook my head and swallowed. "I've got a lot of packing to do, and with the flight out the next day, I didn't want to add anything else to the weekend." I noted the faint frown on her face as I took another bite of the omelet. I knew exactly what she was thinking.

"It's okay, Mom," I told her. "It was girl's choice, and I _was_ asked. I just decided not to go." She studied me for another moment, her thoughtful frown still in place.

"Okay," she said, "if you're sure."

"I'm sure," I told her. I finished the omelet and carried my dishes to the sink. With my back turned toward my mother, I smiled at the kitchen window. At this very moment, the most amazing girl I'd ever met was sitting in my car, waiting for me to drive her to school. And if my mother knew the truth about her, she'd probably have a heart attack.

"You said you talked to Mrs. Lowery about Sunday night, right?" she asked, changing the subject as I walked back toward the table. I nodded.

"I called her last week. Andy said he can drop me off at the airport on his way back to campus Sunday night. It's no problem." I lifted my backpack off the floor and settled it on my shoulders. My mother was frowning faintly. I knew she was still thinking about the dance.

"I'll be fine, Mom. Don't worry." I turned toward the door. "I'll see you tonight. Thanks for breakfast." Glancing up at the key peg, I smiled to myself when I saw that my car keys were missing again, but this morning I knew exactly where they were. The car was already running, and Bella was already sitting in the passenger's seat when I opened the driver's side door.

"Good morning," she said with a breathtaking smile. I smiled back, thinking how nice it would be to start every morning with Bella's smile.

"Good morning," I answered as I slid into the driver's seat and hooked my seat belt. Checking the rearview mirror, I noticed Bella's truck parked along the street where it had been sitting the afternoon before. I smiled again and glanced across the seat at her.

"Did you sleep well last night?" she asked as I pulled out of the driveway.

"I did," I answered. I couldn't stop myself from teasing her just a bit. "Probably a lot better than you did."

"Probably so," she answered, a faint smile touching her lips. When I turned to glance at her at the next stop sign, she was studying me, as though searching for something in my expression.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I was just thinking," she answered, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"About what?" I asked, amused by her vagueness.

"About all of the things that I know about you. And all of the things that I don't." I frowned at her, not quite sure what she meant.

"Like what?"

Her eyebrows lowered, and her face fell into a frown. She glanced away. "This is difficult," she said after a moment. "It's been so long since I was . . . like you. I'm not sure what to ask, where to begin." I considered her words, wondering about the sorts of things that she might want to know.

"What's the first thing that pops into your head?"

"What do you dream?" she asked immediately. Then she frowned thoughtfully. "When you sleep, do you always know the next morning what your dreams were about? It's been so long—I can't remember how that works." I studied her face, thinking for the first time just how strange it would be to never go to sleep.

"Sometimes," I answered her. "Sometimes not."

"What about last night?" she asked. "Do you remember what you dreamed about last night?"

"I do," I answered truthfully. "I dreamed about you."

Bella frowned. With her eyebrows lowered slightly, she looked almost . . . perplexed. "It's a wonder that you got any rest at all, then. Dreams like that must have disturbed your sleep."

I shook my head. "Actually, I didn't want to wake up." I smiled across the seat at her. She was frowning faintly.

"Is it weird," I asked, "never sleeping? To be awake all of the time?" The look she gave me was one of confusion.

"No, it's . . . it's been quite some time since I slept." Her eyes seemed distant, as though she were searching through her memories. She shook her head. "I don't really remember sleeping, it's been so long." I watched her out of the corner of my eye, wondering if she might be more willing now to answer the question she had evaded before.

"Just how long has it been since you slept?" I asked, but Bella shook her head. Apparently she wasn't ready to give me that answer yet.

"That's not fair. You just asked one." A smile touched the corners of her lips. "It's my turn again."

"Are we taking turns, then?" I asked. Bella nodded.

"Yes." Her smile grew . . . mysterious, and she narrowed her eyes slightly. "What about your music?" she asked. "Which one of your parents do you get that from?" I smiled.

"My great-grandmother tried to teach my mom how to play the piano when she was a kid. Mom says it only took her a week to realize that it was completely hopeless." Bella laughed, and my heart skipped a beat.

"What about your father?" she asked.

"My father? Musical? Are you kidding?" I laughed. "Definitely not." I pulled into my usual parking spot and reached for the door handle, pleased when I realized that Bella was waiting for me to get around the car to open the door for her.

We took turns for the rest of the day. I kept my questions fairly simple, sticking to her favorite things, for the most part. It was the easiest way to go, but I was just as fascinated by the expressions that crossed her face when she gave them as I was by the answers themselves. Bella's questions for me were more involved, and no matter what my answer was, she always seemed to want to know why. All through lunch and up until the moment when Mr. Banner pulled the outdated television back into the classroom, we quizzed each other. We might have continued if the room hadn't gotten so quiet for the movie.

That day was no different than the one before. As the lights went out, the same electric charge seemed to run across the tabletop between us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bella lean away from me slightly, but it didn't help. I was still hyperaware of every movement she made. I could see that she was watching me out of the corner of her eye, just as I was watching her. I curled my fingers into my palms and tried not to reach out to graze my fingertip along the back of her hand, but it was hard to resist. I tried Bella's tactic, leaning over to the side to increase the distance between us, but that didn't help either. I was relieved when Mr. Banner finally turned the lights back on and dismissed us.

The awkwardness of Biology had recharged the tension between us. We walked toward building seven in silence now, no longer firing questions back and forth. As we paused to gaze at each other outside the door, I waited, praying for another gust of wind to blow a piece of her hair loose, but the breeze didn't stir. After another frustrating moment, I gave in to temptation and reached up as if to brush a strand of hair away from her face, even though there was nothing there. And in that tiny fraction of a second when my finger brushed against the shell of her ear, Bella reached up and touched her fingertips against the back of my hand.

We both froze this time. Her touch was so light that I could barely feel it; only the chill of her skin registered. And the pulse of the current that the contact sent shooting up my arm. We stood there, staring at each other until she lowered her hand and I forced myself to step away from her. There was something in her eyes that pulled at me, but I couldn't even begin to describe it. "I'll see you after class," I said, though it came out as barely more than a whisper.

"Okay," she nodded. I smiled as she disappeared through the door.

Gym passed by quickly, for which I was grateful. As I hurried out of the locker room, I looked up to find Bella waiting by the far gym doors. I smiled and went to meet her.

Our questions continued as I drove back to my house, but the tone of them had changed. Bella seemed full of them now, so I let her lead. She asked me about things that were harder to describe—things I remembered from my years living in Seattle, what I liked about living in Forks, my earliest memories. We sat in my car for hours, even as the sky darkened and rain began to pour down from the cloudy skies above.

I told her about Bud, about road trips and baseball games and my mother's fascination with do-it-yourself home improvement manuals. I told her about my parents' divorce when I was a baby, about the apartment with the ugly green refrigerator my mother and I had lived in while she'd been in nursing school. I told her about my father's attempt to regain custody of me when I was six and how I'd been dragged back and forth between Seattle and Phoenix so much that year that my excessive absences from school had forced me to repeat first grade . . . in Seattle, after Meg had left my father and he had dropped the lawsuit. I told her about more things than I'd realized I remembered, and Bella was always there with another question.

It was growing dark outside when she finally fell silent. I waited for her to ask something else, then smiled across the car at her when she didn't.

"Out of questions?" I asked teasingly.

"Not even close," she responded with a soft shake of her head. She glanced out through the windshield and frowned. "It's getting late, though, and we can't stay out here all night."

"What time is it?" I asked as I glanced down at my watch.

"Twilight," she murmured. Something in her eyes seemed distant, as though her thoughts were miles away. "It's the saddest time of day, isn't it? But it's the easiest for us." I was frowning across the seat at her when she turned back to face me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It's easier for us to blend in after the sun goes down. But the end of every day is sad, isn't it? Happy days even moreso—to see the sun set on another day and the world covered in darkness." I shook my head.

"There's nothing wrong with darkness. If the sun never set, the moon and the stars would never get their chance to shine."

Bella smirked across the seat at me. "Not that they get the opportunity very often in this part of the world," she pointed out. I smiled back.

"True enough. But just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there."

She studied me for another moment, then reached for the door handle. I offered to get her an umbrella, but she just shook her head.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said as she released the latch and set her foot outside.

"Tomorrow," I nodded. She smiled through the window at me as she closed the door behind her and started down the side of the street toward her truck. I was leaning into the backseat for my backpack and watching her through the rain-streaked window of the car when I saw her freeze. It was too dark outside for me to see her expression, but I could tell that she was facing down the street. I turned my head to see what had captured her attention.

A pair of headlights cut through the drizzle, slowing as they approached my driveway and then turning in. Bella's head seemed to turn, following the progress of the car. I couldn't see who was inside, but it looked as though the person in the passenger's seat was staring back at her. Then Bella turned her head abruptly to the side, crossed to her truck, and pulled away from the curb. Her tires squealed on the wet pavement as she accelerated down the street. I got out of my car, wondering just what was happening.

"Hiya, Edward!" came a familiar voice from the cracked rear window of the little black car.

"Josie? Oh, hey, guys."

Jacob was already climbing out of the driver's side of the car. Squinting in the darkness, I finally recognized the person in the passenger's seat as their father, Billy. What were they doing here? An uneasy feeling crept under my skin as I walked around to the passenger's side of the car to greet him. Somehow I wasn't surprised to find Billy staring at me, analyzing my face as though he were looking for something just under the surface of my skin. His eyes were wide and dark, and his nostrils flared. He seemed out-of-sorts, as though something had just frightened him . . . or given him a shock. I remembered that moment when Bella had stared through the rain at the car—and Billy had stared back. The smile slid from my face.

Billy continued to stare at me, only now I knew why. Somehow, through the darkness and the rain, Billy had recognized Bella as she stood on the edge of the street. His children may have laughed at the legends of the tribe, but Billy was no fool. He knew they were true, and he knew what Bella was. That much—and so much more—was clear in his dark eyes as he stared out at me through the rain-streaked window.


	12. SECRETS (BALANCING)

12. SECRETS  
_(BALANCING)_

For one brief moment I started to panic, but then I realized that there was nothing to panic about. Billy had known about the Cullens all along—for longer than I had, in fact—and his recognizing Bella here today hadn't revealed her secret to anyone. Forcing myself to relax, I nodded to him in greeting, but in the back of my mind I couldn't help but wonder if I was underestimating him somehow. What was it about the way he looked at me that made me think he knew everything Jacob and Josie had told me Saturday on that lonely stretch of First Beach? I glanced back to where Jacob was lifting his father's wheelchair out of the trunk. There was no way either of the twins would have told their father what we had talked about—they'd been too worried about someone overhearing them to have admitted to him what they had done. I shook my head and pushed the thought aside. I was being paranoid; that was all.

"I thought you said you only drove on the reservation," I joked as Jacob started around the car with the wheelchair. Behind him, Josie slammed the trunk lid shut. "Does Sue Clearwater know you're driving her car around Forks without a license?"

"Actually," Josie clarified with an impish grin, "what I said was that no one cared if he drove as long as he stayed on the rez. I never said he didn't drive anywhere else."

"Harry loaned us the car," Jacob added with a laugh. "Sue's out of town visiting family, so she'll never know." Josie leaned forward to open the car door, and I stepped back out of the way.

"What are you guys doing in town?"

"Lizzie invited us over for dinner," Billy explained through the open door as he inched himself closer to the edge of the seat. He wasn't staring at me anymore, but there was something about the tone of his voice that made me think he had a lot of things on his mind, and I was pretty sure dinner wasn't one of them.

"It was Josie's turn to cook, anyway," Jacob said with a shrug, "so we decided to take her up on it." With a grunt of indignation, Josie ripped the baseball cap off her head and used it to smack her brother on the shoulder. Jacob didn't even acknowledge her.

I waited patiently as the twins helped their father into the wheelchair. Billy's eyes still drifted in my direction every few seconds, but the surprise had faded out of them. I got the feeling that now _he_ was wondering just how much _I_ knew. Turning away from them, I headed up the walk to unlock the front door.

"Mom went grocery shopping this afternoon. She should be back any minute," I told them as Jacob pushed Billy through the front door. "The sports report will be on in a couple of minutes if you guys want to catch the highlights. The game won't start for a while, though."

"It's like you read my mind." Jacob grinned as he headed around the corner toward the living room. "Our TV's on the fritz again."

I had only just sat down on the sofa to watch the news when I heard my mother coming in through the front door. Judging by the roar of the rain outside, the drizzle had escalated into a full downpour, but her raincoat was off, draped over the boxes of fried chicken she carried under one arm, and she was soaked.

"I'm running late," she called as she headed into the kitchen, "but I promised you guys supper, so I had to improvise." Leaving Billy in the living room to watch the rest of the news alone, the twins and I headed back out into the rain to unload the rest of the groceries from her car. While she went upstairs to change out of her wet clothes, we unloaded the kitchen table.

"So, did you guys find that master cylinder yet?" I asked as I set a gallon of milk in the refrigerator. Josie pulled a carton of orange juice out of a bag and handed it over to me.

"No, not yet." Jacob shrugged. "But we put up some flyers, so hopefully someone will come through." As she handed me a package of hamburger, I noticed the frown on Josie's face.

"Was that your girlfriend?" she asked as I turned back toward the refrigerator. I froze for a moment, then tried to hide my surprise by rearranging a shelf full of leftovers. Did I hear a whisper of jealousy in her tone? From Josie? The little girl who'd climbed trees with us and dug for fishing worms? I glanced back over my shoulder to find her sorting through empty grocery bags and shook my head. No, not Josie. I was imagining things.

"It's a gray area," I answered cautiously, remembering what I had told Mike. Josie nodded faintly but didn't look up.

"That truck of hers is vintage," Jacob said as he handed me a jar of mayo. "What was that? A fifty-something?" I didn't have a clue how old her truck was, so I shook my head.

"I don't know, but it's in great shape. Not exactly vintage, though. The interior's had a lot of work—leather seats, sound system. It's nice."

"Who is she?" Josie asked as I closed the refrigerator door and turned back toward the table.

"Bella Swan."

"Swan . . . oh, well that explains it," Jake said. He aimed a nervous glance through the doorway toward the living room. "I wondered why my dad was acting so strange."

"He's not a big fan of the Cullen-Swan family, is he?"

"Superstitious old man," Jacob muttered as Josie handed me a box of oatmeal.

I steered the conversation away from Bella after that, telling them about my trip to Safeco Field instead. I left out certain details, of course. Josie fell silent as I recapped the game, but I could tell there was something on her mind. Whatever it was, she chose not to voice it.

We ate dinner in front of the television—not our normal routine, since my mother usually insisted on eating at the kitchen table. I caught Billy glancing back and forth between my mother and me a time or two. I had a feeling that he was trying to decide whether or not to warn her about Bella, trying to work out what to say, but he had to know that my mother would never listen. Our families were nowhere near as close as we had been before Sarah's death, and Billy's dislike of Dr. Cullen and his family was a sore point between the two of them. He had to know that if he tried to say anything to her about Bella, it would only end in another disagreement. Confident that Billy wasn't likely to bring up the subject tonight, I pulled out my Trig homework and sat down on the sofa between Jacob and Josie to watch the game.

"Are you and your friends coming back to the beach any time soon?" Josie asked after the game had ended. It was getting late, and my mother was insisting that the Blacks take the leftover chicken with them. She was piling Josie's arms full of plastic containers.

"I don't know," I told her. "We've been planning that trip for a while, but we kept having to reschedule it. Hopefully some time soon." Josie's face brightened.

"You guys stay in touch, okay?" my mother called out as Jacob pushed his father over the threshold.

"You too, Lizzie," Billy called. And then his eyes settled on me with that knows-too-much expression in them again. "You too, Edward." I nodded and watched through the open door as they made their way down the sidewalk. I caught my mother's frown as Jacob slid behind the wheel, but she didn't say anything.

"So when did you invite them to dinner?" I asked as they pulled out of the driveway.

"When Billy called this morning," she answered absently. Her eyes followed the little black car until it had disappeared around the corner.

"Billy called?" I asked, surprised.

"Yes." She smiled faintly. "It has been a while, hasn't it?" I closed the door and we turned back toward the living room. "We haven't really talked since . . ." my mother trailed off and shook her head. "He said he just wanted to say hello. He's been thinking about calling since you guys saw each other down at the beach. When I heard the twins in the background talking about getting the TV fixed, I thought I'd invite them over for the game."

I nodded absently. Was that really why Billy had called? My trip to the beach had prompted his call, of that I was certain, but as I headed up the stairs to my bedroom, I couldn't help but remember the odd feeling I'd had earlier—the strange suspicion that Billy knew more than he was letting on.

. . . . .

By the time I awoke the next morning, Billy's visit was no more than a vague memory. It was Friday, the last day of school before spring break, and the sky outside was gray and overcast. It was going to be a beautiful day.

"Hi," I said as I opened the car door. Bella's answering smile took my breath away. I didn't know how it was possible, but somehow, every morning when I first laid eyes on her, it seemed as though she had grown more beautiful overnight.

"Good morning. Did you sleep well?" she asked. My eyes settled on the waves of mahogany hair that spilled down over the shoulders of her pale green sweater. I knew how soft her hair was now, and my hands itched to reach out and curl the silky strands around my fingertips. Forcing myself to look away, I checked my mirrors and pulled out onto the street.

"I did. How was your night?"

"Pleasant, but uneventful," she answered. Stopping at the end of the street, I frowned across the car at her.

"What do you do at night?" I asked. "I know you don't sleep, but you have to do something to keep from getting bored." The corners of her lips lifted in a secret little smile that made me think I was missing something, some inside joke, perhaps.

"Any number of things," she answered. "Sometimes I read. Sometimes I go for a walk. I find ways to occupy the time." I considered that for a moment.

"What did you do last night?" I asked. That mischievous smile spread across her lips again, and she shook her head.

"You just asked one," she reminded me slyly. "It's my turn again." Shaking my head in amused resignation, I listened as Bella cleverly maneuvered the conversation away from my question and onto other topics.

I'd grown accustomed to Bella's evasions over the last few days. I'd memorized a hundred of her favorite things—from books and poetry to flowers and seasons of the year—but there were certain topics that I had learned she would avoid, certain questions that Bella simply would not answer. Oddly enough, general questions about her life as a vampire didn't seem to bother her. She answered those readily enough, though she often watched me as she did so, presumably still anxious about my reactions. The questions she avoided were simpler questions, safer questions, I had assumed, than the vampire ones. Her childhood, for example, and the life she must have lived before becoming what she was seemed to be off limits. Whenever I broached those topics, she would always change the subject, drawing the conversation off in a different direction. But those weren't the only questions she evaded, and there were moments, like this one, when I couldn't help but wonder what she was hiding.

"Have you ever dated anyone?" she asked. It was several hours later, and we were sitting at our usual table in the cafeteria. Lunch was nearly over, and I had finished eating, but Bella was playing with an apple she had picked up as we went through the lunch line, peeling off the shiny red skin with her fingernails. Every so often she would lift it to her lips, as though taking a bite. "Not casually," she clarified, "I mean anyone that you had feelings for." Her eyes met mine over the apple, and I wondered if my answer was more important to her than she made it seem.

"Not really," I told her truthfully. There had been a brief time, right after I'd broken my ankle, when a number of my female classmates had made it clear that they were available if I was looking for a girlfriend. I hadn't been interested in any of them at the time, and I hadn't wanted their sympathy.

"The last real date I was on was before I even had a driver's license." I smiled faintly at the awkwardness of the memory. "Angela's mom had to drop us off at the theater and then pick us up again after the movie was over." I watched as Bella's face froze.

"Angela Weber?" she asked. I nodded, trying to understand her expression. Did Bella seriously think I might be interested in Angela?

I shrugged. "It was one date. We had fun, but neither of us ever suggested going out again. I mean, I like her, but . . . not like that." Bella was studying my face again, a thoughtful frown twisting her angelic features. I couldn't begin to guess what she was thinking, but something in her eyes made me want to reassure her.

"Besides, she's had a thing for Ben Cheney for a while now. They've just never gotten around to asking each other out." Bella's eyebrows lowered slightly.

"How do you know?" she asked.

"I don't know. Just . . . the way they watch each other sometimes, I guess." Bella set the apple down on her plate, the thoughtful expression crossing her features again.

"You notice things," she said after a moment, "subtle things that humans don't usually pick up on." I shrugged again.

"I guess I just . . . pay more attention."

"Perhaps," was all she said.

"So, what about you?" I asked after a moment. "Any ex-boyfriends out there I should know about?" Bella laughed.

"No. Dating . . . doesn't work quite the same way for our kind as it does for humans."

I studied her face, wondering just what she meant by that. As I watched her, her eyes shifted slightly to the side, focusing on something over my shoulder. Curious, I turned to see what she was looking at, but all I saw was a group of sophomore girls exiting through the cafeteria doors. When I turned back to face her, she was glancing back down at the apple again, and there was a wrinkle between her eyebrows. She was troubled by something.

"What is it?" I asked. When she lifted her eyes to mine, there was sadness in their golden depths.

"I'll be leaving in a few minutes," she told me.

"Leaving?" I asked. "Leaving school?" If she was ditching, leaving before Biology, then I wouldn't see her again until . . . tomorrow morning's breakfast date. I watched her anxiously, hoping I had misunderstood.

"I'm leaving after lunch." She was frowning at me now, looking as miserable as I felt. Preoccupied as I was by the thought of her leaving, I still couldn't stand to see her so sad.

"Why?" I asked in a half-hearted attempt to make a joke. "We're not blood typing in Biology again, are we?" Bella smiled faintly.

"No, nothing like that. We're going hunting." I studied the lovely caramel of her eyes and frowned.

"Didn't you just go?" I asked, trying to remember what she'd said about the frequency of their hunting trips. I'd seen her eyes much darker than they were now.

"Yes, but I thought it might be wise to go again . . . before tomorrow." She frowned faintly. "Being alone with you . . . it isn't as easy as it appears to be." Her voice dropped slightly, and something in her tone made it sound as though she were confessing some terrible sin. Why did she sound so grave? What did she mean when she said being with me wasn't as easy as it appeared?

"I'm guessing you aren't going to let me pick you up at your house tomorrow morning, either, are you?" I asked instead. Bella shook her head.

"No, but I'll be at your house. Is our regular meeting time too early? I know that people sometimes prefer to sleep later on Saturday mornings." I shook my head.

"No, that's not too early." I wasn't expecting to be able to sleep in anyway, not when I knew Bella was waiting for me. "You aren't going to tell me where we're going, are you?" I asked. She shook her head, a mysterious little smile replacing the frown.

In my peripheral vision, I saw several more people moving slowly toward the cafeteria exit. I glanced up at the clock. Only a few more moments with Bella, and then lunch would be over.

"So, who are you going hunting with today?" I asked, trying to distract us both from the ticking of the clock.

"Just Alice." I nodded and turned to glance across the cafeteria at her cousins.

"Do you and Alice always go together? If it's another girls' day out, why doesn't Rosalie go with you?" Bella's gorgeous cousin took that moment to glance in our direction. She was just as beautiful as ever, of course, but as her eyes fell on me, I felt a shudder run down my spine. There was something in their dark depths, something cold and lethal, but there was more. I could almost feel the anger, the disdain that I'd known would be there, and something else, too . . . Uncertainty? Suspicion? Fear? I studied her expression, trying to put a name to it even as chills continued down my spine. Rosalie held my gaze for a second longer before I heard Bella make a hissing sound under her breath. Rosalie turned her head. When I turned back to Bella, I found that she was still staring at her cousin, her eyes narrowed slightly.

"Rose isn't as . . . understanding as Alice is," Bella explained as she turned back to face me.

I considered her words and risked another brief—a very brief—glance toward her cousins, then turned back to face her. "What about the rest of your family?" I asked. Bella frowned across the table at me.

"For the most part, they're completely dumbfounded." Her eyes seemed infinitely sad. "They can't understand, you see."

"Can't understand what?" I asked. "Us?" Bella shook her head.

"They don't know where this is going to go. How it will turn out . . . or how it will . . . end." I studied her expression for a moment.

"We've been seen together publicly," she continued. "I've made sure of that. I've even made sure to park my truck outside your house every day. People will connect the two of us . . . and my family. They don't know if they can trust me." She paused and glanced back down at the tabletop. "Sometimes I don't know if I can trust myself," she said, her voice almost a whisper.

I shook my head. "I don't understand."

"This . . . this may not end well, Edward," she whispered, her eyes boring into mine. "Surely the thought has crossed your mind."

The thought had crossed my mind—I'd have been crazy if it hadn't—but I'd already dismissed those fears.

"Didn't we already have this conversation?" I asked. "Saving my life doesn't make me afraid of you." Bella shook her head.

"But you should be," she said quietly. "Of all of the horrors of which I'm capable, hurting you would be the most heinous." She glanced away, her eyes settling on the cafeteria clock. "You should go," she said softly.

All around us, I could see that people were standing up and heading to class, but somehow, I wasn't entirely certain her warning had anything to do with me being late for Biology. Bella's cousins were leaving, too—Rosalie's scowl was still firmly in place—and Alice was heading in our direction. I realized that this was as close as I might get to meeting Bella's family for some time, so I did the polite thing, standing up as she came toward us. I was rewarded with an approving smile as she came to a halt beside Bella's chair. She cleared her throat expectantly, and Bella sighed.

"Edward, this is Alice. Alice, this is Edward," she said, her tone somewhat less than formal as she made the introductions.

"Hello!" Alice beamed at me. Her smile was brilliant, and her eyes, like Bella's, were bright. "It's nice to meet you."

"Hi," I said, surprised by Alice's friendliness. "You, too." Alice glanced down at her cousin and took a step back.

"I'll wait outside," she told Bella. Turning, she gave me another smile and headed toward the cafeteria doors.

"So, I guess I'll see you tomorrow morning?" I asked as Bella stood. She nodded, looking sad. "Have fun, okay?"

"Have fun," Bella repeated flatly. She offered me a weak smile. "Okay."

On impulse, I reached across the table to curl a lock of her hair around my fingers. I was halfway expecting her to lean away from me here, in this crowded cafeteria, but she didn't. Instead, her eyes softened, and she leaned toward me subtly. Indulging myself just a bit further, I brushed the pad of my thumb along the line of her porcelain jaw, then let my hand drop away. I smiled down into the gold of her eyes.

"Okay," she said again as she began to step backward toward the cafeteria door, only this time she was smiling.

The rest of the day dragged on. I remembered wondering how I would ever pay attention in Biology again with Bella sitting beside me, but now I realized that it was impossible to pay attention with her gone. We finished watching the movie, but nothing about it clicked in my memory. I spent the entire class period glancing sideways at Bella's empty chair and wondering what she was doing.

Gym was no better. I was relieved to get into my car at the end of the day, but my relief was short-lived. The drive home seemed so much different without Bella in the seat beside me.

Back at home, I sat down at the kitchen table to do some of my homework—I didn't want to have to drag it all to Phoenix with me. After microwaving a plate of leftover lasagna, I headed upstairs to pack for my trip, but I didn't make a lot of headway. My mind kept drifting back to what Bella had said about things not ending well. I knew what she was—I was past questioning that now, but all of this time I had assumed that Bella was no danger to me. Why did she think otherwise? Was there something that I didn't know? When I was with her I felt . . . _safe_ wasn't the word. I felt . . . alive, more alive than I'd ever felt before. Could I feel that way if my life was in danger?

Those thoughts shuffled back and forth in my mind until I finally gave up and headed downstairs to the piano. Music was what I needed, I decided, to soothe my nerves. As evening faded into night, I shifted from one melody to another, and by the time my mother came home from work, I had settled on Bella's lullaby without ever really intending to.

Tired, but not sleepy, I headed upstairs to bed, telling myself that I needed to get some rest before morning. I tossed and turned for hours until I finally fell into a light sleep. It didn't last. I was awake again long before my alarm went off.

. . . . .

I rose early, having spent the last several hours staring at the ceiling. My mother wasn't scheduled to work until the afternoon, but she had already headed in to the hospital to decorate for Connie's baby shower. I had the house to myself. I showered and dressed, wondering what Bella was planning for our breakfast date. I was putting on my shoes when the smell of pancakes drifted up the stairs and into my bedroom.

I hurried down the steps and around the corner into the kitchen, stopping at the sight of Bella standing by the stove. She was wearing another pair of those designer jeans, I noted, and a pale blue tank top that left her shoulders bare. My mother's apron was tied around her waist, and there was a spatula in her hand, but it was the smile on her face that emptied every thought from my head.

"Good morning," she said. I still hadn't found my voice, so I nodded in reply.

"You're making breakfast?" I finally managed a moment later. From her place beside the stove Bella laughed.

"Blueberry pancakes. You mentioned them before, so I assumed you must like them."

I nodded dumbly. My mouth was watering, but I couldn't tell if it was the delicious smell taking over the kitchen or the sight of Bella in those jeans . . . or a combination of the two. Turning away from me, she frowned down at the griddle.

"It's been quite some time since I actually prepared food," she said, sounding uncertain. "I had to refresh my memory." Looking much more confident than she sounded, Bella flipped several pancakes off the griddle and onto a plate and added a couple slices of bacon from a pan on the rear burner. Smiling shyly, she carried them toward the table. It was already set for one.

"You made me breakfast?" I repeated from my place just inside the doorway. Bella laughed again, her golden eyes dancing.

"It seemed to be the easiest way to avoid having to explain why you were the only one of us eating."

I nodded and took a seat. It looked wonderful, and it smelled delicious. Bella pulled her lower lip between her teeth as I lifted my fork and took a bite. It tasted even better than it smelled.

"You don't give your memory enough credit. These are great." Bella seemed to relax at that. Smiling, she pulled off the apron and sat down to watch me eat.

"I've spent the last several days watching the Food Network," she admitted. I stopped chewing and glanced across the table at her.

"The Food Network?" I asked. I'd thought pancakes were pretty standard. Pour out some mix, add some water, and plop them onto the griddle. Apparently Bella had made these from scratch.

"Human food is . . . complicated," she explained, "and bewildering, especially when the only contact I've had with it in quite some time has been when I'm pretending to eat it." She made a face.

"Is it that bad?" I asked, amused by her expression. Judging by her pancakes, Bella's cooking was far too good to merit an expression like that.

"Disgusting, actually. I can't imagine having to eat it all of the time." She smiled faintly. "Of course, I'm sure you don't mind, but it's bad enough on the rare occasions when we have to."

I stopped to stare at her. "You eat?" I asked.

Bella frowned. "Only when we're so close to a human that they'll notice if we don't." I nodded, my curiosity peaked.

"Does it . . . hurt you?" I asked.

"No, but it's incompatible with our bodies. We have to . . . get rid of it." She grimaced. I was fairly certain that I knew what she meant by that, so I decided to let the subject drop.

"Well, complicated or not, these are amazing," I told her. Bella smiled.

"I'm glad. It's more difficult than you'd imagine. It's been . . . quite some time since I did any cooking. I didn't remember." Her perfect eyebrows lowered slightly. "Though as much as I used to cook, you would think that I should have remembered something."

"You did a lot of cooking?" I asked. I wasn't expecting her to answer my question, but with one simple phrase she'd already volunteered more information about her life before than I'd managed to get out of her with days of questions.

Bella nodded. "I did." She eyed me carefully, as if trying to decide whether or not to continue. "I helped to run a boarding house when I was human," she admitted after a moment. "I did a lot of the cooking."

A boarding house. I considered that as I chewed. I wondered when boarding houses had gone out of style. How long had it been since hotels and apartment buildings had taken over? If I asked her more about that mysterious boarding house, would she answer my questions, or would she evade them again?

"Did-" I started to ask, but the ringing of the kitchen phone interrupted my question. I glared across the room at it. Just when I was finally starting to get answers from Bella, the phone had to ruin the moment. Shaking my head, I took another bite of pancake and let it ring, listening absently as the machine played through my mother's prerecorded introduction.

"Junior," came the voice through the speakers. Lowering the fork I'd been lifting toward my mouth, I turned to face the phone. My stomach dropped. "This is your father. I've had a complication with one of my cases, and I'll be going out of town this coming week. You'll have to reschedule your visit for some other time. I'll be in touch about the summer internship." Then there was a soft click and nothing more.

I could feel Bella's eyes on me as I stood and walked across the kitchen on wooden legs. With a bit more force than necessary, I pushed the button to replay my father's message.

"Junior, this is your-" I silenced him with the press of another button and stared down at the display as an electronic voice announced that the message had been deleted. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bella rise and cross the kitchen to my side, but I felt too ashamed to look at her. Instead, I did the responsible thing, dialing Mrs. Lowery's number and explaining that I wouldn't need Andy to drop me off at the airport after all. When she assumed I'd found another ride into Seattle, I didn't bother to explain. After thanking her, I hung up the phone and walked back to the table.

Bella watched me carefully as I finished eating, but the lighthearted mood of moments before was gone. My appetite was, too, at first, but Bella's pancakes were too good to pass up. Cleaning my plate, I stood and started carrying dishes toward the sink.

"I'll wash," Bella told me as I started running water. I smiled sadly.

"Bet it's been a while since you washed dishes, huh?" I asked, but somehow my teasing felt flat. Bella smiled anyway.

With Bella washing and me drying, the dishes were cleaned and put away within several minutes, and my mood was starting to improve. Maybe I wasn't a good enough son to merit my father's undivided attention, but Bella seemed to enjoy my company. To tell the truth, now that I really thought about it, I was almost glad my father had called. Even if this was the only part of spring break that I got to spend with Bella, I'd enjoyed what little time we'd had together this morning far more than I would have enjoyed visiting my father for the entire break.

"Would you like to go somewhere with me?" she asked as I hung the dishtowel up to dry. "There's a place I know. It's lovely there and peaceful." She pulled her lower lip between her teeth briefly. "You asked once why we don't go out in sunlight. I can show you." Eager for any excuse to spend time with her, I nodded.

"Okay," I agreed. I watched the smile tug at the corners of her mouth before she pulled her lower lip between her teeth again.

"We'll have to walk," she said.

I glanced down at my sneakers. "How far?"

"Not far. You'll be fine." She seemed . . . uncertain about something, so I offered her my most encouraging smile.

"Okay, let me get my coat."

When I came back down the stairs, Bella had pulled a leather jacket on over her tank top and was waiting by the door.

"You should drive," she told me, handing my keys down from the pegboard. I locked the front door behind us and glanced across the street to where her truck was parked.

"I don't know where we're going," I said.

"I'll give you directions," she promised. "I'd just . . . much rather leave my truck here, if that's alright." I frowned, puzzled by her odd request.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because people will see it here and connect the two of us." She frowned at the question still in my eyes. "It's . . . incentive," she admitted after a moment.

"Incentive?" I asked.

"Incentive for me . . . not to make a mistake," she explained in a quiet voice.

Incentive not to make a mistake? What did she mean? Did she mean that it was incentive for her to bring me back alive? I paused, wondering again if I had misjudged the level of danger I was in when I was with Bella. Still, even faced with her uncertainty, I didn't waver in my decision to go wherever she was taking me. Not in the slightest.

"Okay," I said as we headed down the walk toward my car, "if you're sure."

Bella was strangely silent on the drive, speaking only to give me directions. Our game of questions seemed to have been forgotten. We drove north through town, leaving Forks behind as Bella guided me off the highway and through a series of turns onto increasingly narrow roads until we finally dead-ended at a parking area for a hiking trail. Bella was already out of the car by the time I made it around to the passenger's side. She stood as still as a statue, staring off through the trees.

"Is that where we're going?" I asked. All of the signs pointed toward the hiking trail, but Bella was ignoring them. She nodded.

The weather was turning muggy, and since it looked like we'd be hiking off-trail, I decided to leave my jacket in the car. Bella declined to take hers off and kept it on, even though I was certain it would soon be uncomfortable.

"How far do we have to go?" I asked as we started off into the woods.

"It's only about five miles," she told me.

Five miles there and five miles back. Ten miles with no trail.

"Okay," I said under my breath.

The hike took most of the morning. The way was easier than I would have expected without a trail, but I also noticed that Bella seemed to take the easiest paths around any clusters of underbrush, that she avoided the places where fallen trees had blocked the way or where the inclines were the steepest. The day grew warmer, and I was glad that I'd left my coat behind, but Bella showed no sign of discomfort in her leather jacket. She was quiet, though, and after days of listening to her beautiful voice, the silence was eerie.

As I followed her deeper and deeper into the woods, I began to wonder if her reluctance to speak had anything to do with her fears of harming me. Still, regardless of Bella's fears, I couldn't bring myself to regret being alone with her. I found myself trying to entertain her instead, telling her stories from my childhood to see if I could make her laugh. I was unsuccessful at first, but by the time I came around to the tale of how my mother had nearly flooded the house while replacing the kitchen faucet because the pages of the instruction manual had stuck together, Bella's laughter was ringing through the trees.

As the morning drew on, I noticed that the quality of the light filtering down through the canopy above was beginning to change. No longer dull and gray, the light had taken on a more golden quality. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Bella, wondering if the sunlight would make her nervous, but she didn't react to it in any way, and though the day had become quite warm, she still showed no signs of discomfort in her heavy jacket.

Some time later, Bella came to a stop and gestured into the forest ahead. "We're almost there," she told me. "Can you see it?" I glanced ahead into the sea of green and shook my head. Whatever it was that I was supposed to see, all I could detect were more trees.

Bella frowned. "I guess it's too soon. It's not much farther, I promise."

After another couple of minutes, I realized that there was a definite brightness ahead, and I picked up the pace. Seeing that I was sure of my destination, Bella let me take the lead.

The trees ended abruptly, and I stepped out into a meadow formed perfectly into a circle. The sky was visible above, no longer hidden by the treetops, and the sun was shining brightly. There were wildflowers everywhere—after hours of nothing but the green of the forest, it seemed strange to see their abundant colors dancing in the faint breeze. Off in the distance I could hear the bubbling of a stream. I turned in a circle, trying to take it all in. That was when I realized that Bella wasn't behind me anymore.

I turned to glance back the way I had come and realized that she was still standing under the cover of the trees, behind the ferns that marked the edge of the meadow. She was watching me, smiling uncertainly. I started back toward her.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," I told her, uncertain of just what would happen to her in the sunlight. Bella shook her head and laughed.

"It's okay," she told me. "I'm coming out."

The feel of the breeze in the air, the swaying of the wildflowers, the sound of the water running over the rocks, and Bella's laughter—it seemed like heaven to me. And then Bella took a steadying breath, pulled off her jacket, and stepped out through the ferns into the sunlight.

. . . . .

**A couple of notes to end on** - First, **_thank you all_ **for your reviews and your continued support! You have no idea how much it means to me to know that you're still following this, especially when I'm stuck in the middle of a bad case of writer's block and wondering if anyone even cares that I'm still writing this anyway. You guys are the best! For anyone who hasn't reviewed and has a burning question about something in this story, please don't hesitate to ask. I'm always available to answer questions.

And secondly, I know that I confused some of you with my discussion of the bullets in Chapter 9. I went back and edited the end of the chapter a bit. Hopefully it all makes a little more sense now.


	13. HIGH WIRE (CONFESSIONS)

13. HIGH WIRE  
_(CONFESSIONS)_

Bella and I sat side by side in the grass at the center of the meadow. She was as silent and as still as a statue, her arms wrapped around her legs and her eyes fixed on something in the distance. A faint breeze stirred the air, playing with the tendrils of her hair and rustling the leaves in the trees, but there was no other sound, save the distant babbling of the yet unseen brook. No bird dared break the silence with its song.

I hadn't known what to expect when Bella had stepped out of the shadows, but it certainly hadn't been this. I watched in fascination as the sunlight danced across her bare arms and shoulders, reflecting back from every inch of her exposed skin like a diamond sparkling under showroom lights. She'd given me an explanation when I'd asked—something scientific about the light spectrum and refraction that I'd filed away in the back of my mind for future consideration, but I didn't want to think about it now. Bella was too lovely, too perfect, too magical for any science to explain.

With my hand hovering barely an inch above her skin, I traced the shape of her arm, fascinated by the way the sunlight reflected back onto my palm. Bella turned to watch the motion of my hand, a wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows, and she lifted her eyes to mine.

"Doesn't this bother you?" she asked. I shook my head.

"Proof of my inhumanity, and it doesn't worry you in the least." A look of disgust crossed her features. Why was it that everything that amazed me about Bella seemed to upset her?

"Actually, I was just thinking how rare it is that you find someone who's as beautiful on the outside as they are on the inside." Bella's eyes softened slightly at my words, but then she turned her head and looked away.

Slowly, I traced my palm the rest of the way down her arm to her wrist, stopping where her hand rested on her knee. I hesitated for a moment before laying my hand atop hers.

I had known from our previous encounters that Bella's skin was cool and as smooth and as flawless as the porcelain I had once compared it to. Now, with my hand on hers, I could tell that her skin was even firmer than I had imagined when I had touched her cheek. She was as unyielding as a marble statue, as strong and impenetrable as the diamonds she resembled in sunlight. I held my breath, expecting her to pull away, but she didn't. After a moment she shifted her hand slightly, allowing me to curl my fingertips into her palm.

How often during the last week had I ached to do this? To reach down on our way to the cafeteria and take her hand in mine, to lace our fingers together as we made our way down the sidewalk toward Biology?

"For the record, I disagree about your humanity," I told her as I watched her skin sparkle beneath my hand. "Maybe you aren't _human,_ strictly speaking, but you smile when you're happy, and you frown when you're sad. Even when I don't know what you're feeling, I can still see emotion in your eyes. That doesn't sound inhuman to me."

Bella frowned and slid her hand out from under mine.

"But I'm not human, Edward," she sighed. I searched her face for a moment, but I couldn't find the right words to say.

"Do you know what my main theory used to be?" I finally asked. Her frown deepened, and she shook her head.

"After you came out of nowhere to save me that morning in the parking lot, I was starting to think you were some kind of guardian angel."

"Angel of death, perhaps," she said sadly, turning her eyes away.

"An angel of death who goes around saving people?" I asked, teasing slightly, but Bella didn't get the joke. I sobered. "I still think you underestimate yourself." I watched the frown lingering on her lips, wondering why she was so determined to acknowledge only the darkest parts of herself. Why couldn't she see what I could see?

"Bella," I whispered, and she turned her face toward me. I lifted my right hand, hesitating as I waited for her to pull away. I saw something in her eyes, something that seemed . . . conflicted, before her eyelids closed and she leaned toward me slightly. Cupping her jaw in my hand, I traced my thumb over her eyelids, over her temple, over the arch of her cheek. I leaned forward, suddenly very aware of how close we were sitting, how close her face was to mine. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to lean across the distance between us and lay my lips against hers, but I wasn't that foolish. We were like a circus act, Bella and I, balancing precariously as we inched along a high wire. The subtlest breeze could send us plunging over the edge, and there was no safety net below.

I slid my thumb across her cheek once more, and probably in spite of herself, Bella opened her lips to release a sigh. It was my undoing. I couldn't stop my thumb from its path as it moved across her face. I heard the beginnings of her intake of breath—she was probably getting ready to say something—less than a heartbeat before my thumb brushed over her pale lips.

And then, suddenly I was alone, my right hand suspended in midair as I reached out toward the place where Bella had been, but Bella was no longer there. In a move so sudden that I had been unable to discern it, she had vanished.

Puzzled, I turned my head to search the edges of the meadow, finding her some twenty feet away. She was backed against the trunk of a towering spruce, her hands splayed out against the bark on either side of her body. She was frozen in place, and her eyes were wide and terrified, like a deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car. I rose slowly to my feet, and we stared across the distance at each other. She shook her head.

"This was a mistake," she said, her beautiful voice cracking on the last word. "I should never have brought you here." I took a step forward, trying to close some of the distance between us, but the terror in Bella's eyes only deepened. She looked as though she were trying to decide whether or not to run. I stopped.

"You shouldn't be here with me," she said again. "At any moment my worst instincts could take over."

"No, they won't," I told her softly. I knew no such thing, of course. I was well aware that I might never return from this meadow, but something told me that if we had any chance of conquering what stood between us, now was the time to do it. Bella was terrified that she might hurt me—that much was clear—so I had to make sure she knew that I had faith in her, even if she didn't. If she knew I believed in her, maybe she would be more able to believe in herself.

She let out a short, bitter laugh.

"You'd never be able to outrun me, Edward. You'd never be able to fight me off. I'm what's at the top of every food chain."

I thought back to that January morning in the parking lot—how she had moved so quickly that no one had been able to see her, how she had held two cars apart with what seemed like very little effort—and how she had practically flown across the meadow only moments ago.

"I already knew that," I told her, taking another small step forward. It was like sneaking up on a terrified kitten, a terrified kitten with very sharp and deadly claws.

"Then why are you here?" she asked. There were no tears on her face, but I could hear them in her tone.

"Because I'd rather be here with you than anywhere else in the world without you."

Bella closed her eyes, the agony clear in her expression as she turned her face away.

"I'm too good at what I do," she said, and I couldn't help but wonder if she was speaking to me or to herself. "Even when I don't want to be doing it, you're still drawn in."

"Did you ever wonder why we're so unnaturally beautiful, Edward? Why our voices sound so lovely? Why our movements seem so graceful?" I shook my head. "You probably think I wear perfume, don't you?" She frowned. "It's what we are, don't you see? Everything about us is designed to attract you, to draw you to us until it's too late for you to escape. We're the most perfect predators the world has ever seen." Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back against the tree trunk.

"I should never have returned from Alaska," she said. Her words were so soft that they crossed the distance between us as little more than a whisper.

"Alaska?" I asked, trying to understand what she meant. I thought back to when we had first met. "Is that where you went after your first day?" Turning her face toward mine, she watched me for a moment before nodding.

"Why?" I asked. Her expression, as tortured as ever, didn't ease as she gazed across the meadow at me, but she didn't answer.

"You went to get away from me," I guessed. Bella hesitated, then nodded. "I suspected as much at the time, but then I decided I was just being egotistical." I smiled faintly, but my attempt at humor did nothing to ease the strain in her features.

"I suppose I do owe you an explanation after all that I've put you through." She closed her eyes for a few seconds, apparently searching for words, and I took another small step toward her. I'd already significantly narrowed the gap between us—she had to have noticed that—but whatever she had on her mind now must have been more important than getting away from me. She reopened her eyes and lowered her eyebrows in thought.

"Do you remember the drive home from Seattle? The bread and the water . . . and the chocolate cake?" I nodded, remembering her analogy.

"There are different ways to make chocolate cake," she began, moving away from the tree trunk for the first time to pace back and forth in front of it. "Different recipes, different ingredients. . ." she trailed off, searching for words again, I assumed. "Not every chocolate cake is exactly alike. One person's favorite chocolate cake isn't necessarily someone else's favorite, and sometimes someone may prefer one kind of chocolate cake to all others." Her words trailed off into silence again, and she frowned. Thinking back to our original conversation, I tried to piece her words together as I watched her pace.

"So what you're trying to say is . . . I'm your favorite chocolate cake?" Bella grimaced.

"Yes. No. I hate the analogy, but it's the only way I know to explain it, though it's far more complicated than that. It's not just about preferring something, and it's far beyond just wanting it. It's more than a craving, stronger than a compulsion. It's an irresistible temptation, an undeniable urge. It's the only thing you can think about, and it's nearly impossible to resist because you can't even _think_ about resisting."

I tried to piece her words together, to understand what she was trying to explain. Something that you couldn't resist, even if you wanted to?

Suddenly I remembered Bud and the clank of glass bottles as he'd carried his trash out to the curb. I remembered the days when he wouldn't answer his door, even though I'd known he was home. The meetings in Port Angeles every Tuesday night. And the pain and shame in his expression every time he'd met his own eyes in a mirror. I'd seen Bud fighting a battle against himself, a battle that he couldn't win, but somehow, I had a feeling that what Bella was describing now was much, much worse. I tried to think of some way to tell her that I understood.

"Like a drug addict," I said, piecing together what felt like a more suitable analogy, "a drug addict with a hit sitting in front of them that they want so desperately." Bella stopped and nodded.

"It's all they can think about," she continued. "More than food, more than water. More than their next breath."

I nodded slowly. Suddenly I preferred being Bella's favorite chocolate cake to being her drug of choice. I thought back to Bud, fighting all of those years against something that he couldn't beat. Bella was fighting, too. Would she, like Bud, eventually lose the battle? I glanced back to her, to the expression on her face.

"I can't give in to this," she said through clenched teeth as she renewed her pacing.

"So I made you run away to Alaska," I mused, deciding it was probably best to change the course of our conversation. Bella shook her head.

"No, leaving was my decision, as was coming back. From the moment you walked into that classroom, I was barely in control of myself. I've lived through countless hours in my life, but that one felt like the longest. I don't know how I managed to stop myself in the instant when your scent first hit me. I spent the entire hour planning ways to lure you away from that crowded classroom, to a place where there would be no witnesses to dispose of, and promising the monster inside of me that it would get what it wanted if it would only wait. In the back of my mind, some tiny part of me was trying to hold on, to maintain control one moment at a time until I could get away from you and clear my head."

I remembered back to that first day, to her supposed animosity toward me and the way she had escaped from the classroom at the end of the hour.

"Afterward, without your scent in front of me, it was easier to lie, to tell myself that the pull of your blood couldn't possibly have been as strong as I had imagined it to be. I thought that if I rearranged my class schedule, I might be able to avoid you and the temptation you presented, but the secretary was less than helpful, and when you came into the office that afternoon and your scent hit me again, it was all I could do to escape that little room before I lost all control." She glanced away and rubbed her hands up her arms, as if trying to warm them. I remembered the expression on her face as she'd pushed past me that afternoon, the expression that had seemed so close to tears.

"I didn't know you then. You were nothing more than a stranger who smelled entirely too tempting, and I didn't want to leave my family. We'd been apart for so long, and now that we were together again, I couldn't bear the thought of leaving once more, but I knew it was the only way to prevent myself from harming you. I went to Alaska to visit some old friends and tried to decide what to do." She sighed again. "I didn't stay long. I missed my family, and I realized that I had to find some way to beat the monster inside of me, to chain it, once and for all. Running wasn't the answer—somehow, somewhere that monster might find me again. Years from now, I might cross your path once more—in a bookstore, in a crowded airport, who knows where it might happen?—but I would be just as powerless to resist you as I had ever been. Or, perhaps there was another, some innocent man, woman, or child who was just as appealing as you, and if I wasn't prepared . . ." She shook her head. "I told myself that the only way to beat my demons was to face them, but I am tormented by the thought of what I might have done . . . by the thought of what I could _still_ do."

"Does that happen often?" I asked. "Meeting someone who . . ." I couldn't find the words to finish. "Has it ever happened to you before?"

For the first time since our conversation had begun, Bella turned away from me. Arms hugged tightly about her, she turned toward the trees and took a few steps into the shadows.

"Once," she said in a tiny voice. Deep in my chest, I felt my heart skip a beat.

"What happened?" I asked, but judging by her stance, by the way she was hiding her face, I had a feeling that I already knew the answer. She glanced back over her shoulder at me, and the pain and sadness in her eyes needed no interpretation. I stood watching her in silence, not knowing what to say until she turned and paced back toward the tree.

"You can't know what it is to destroy a life, to, in one unguarded moment, do something you can never take back. To leave a man without his wife, children without a mother. To see the pain on their faces." In one movement she had slid into a sitting position, her back against the tree and her arms wrapped around her knees. The expression on her face was indescribable. I hadn't stepped toward her in long moments, but I took several steps forward now, my instinct to comfort her, before I realized that my closeness was probably the last thing Bella wanted. I stopped and stood watching her, feeling helpless as I waited for her to speak again. It took a few moments for her to lift her head from her knees, but when she did, she looked no better.

"I was young, then, and still new to this life. I didn't know it could happen, and I told myself that it wouldn't happen again, that it was nothing more than an unfortunate incident. I wasn't prepared for you, and it was stronger this time than it was then."

The pain was beginning to fade from her eyes, I noted, and her voice seemed less strained. I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if Bella had never encountered someone like me before, someone she couldn't resist. Would she still have been able to resist me that first day? I was fairly certain that I knew the answer to that, but I couldn't quite reconcile myself to being thankful that some poor woman had died countless years before.

"I told myself that if I had any chance of learning to control my most hideous instincts, it would be through exposure. As impossible as it seemed, I had to accustom myself to you, learn to tolerate your irresistible scent, so I resolved to get to know you, to teach myself to see you as someone, rather than as someone who smelled entirely too good. It was . . . difficult, to say the least, and I found myself nearly failing on several occasions." She grimaced.

"And then came that morning in the parking lot when you were nearly killed. I'd only known you for a matter of days, but already I couldn't bear the thought of something happening to you." She frowned. "There are two parts of me that are constantly at war when I'm around you. The evil side that craves you, that yearns for your death . . . and the side that wants to keep you safe. If something happened to you now, I don't know how I would stand it. If it happened by my own hand . . ." She trailed off, lowering her eyes to the ground.

"The demon inside me fights with the saint, but I'm no saint, and I fear that side will never win." She lifted her head again.

"We argued after that, my family and I. They were angry and afraid that I had exposed us all by saving you." She clenched her hands into fists. "In the end we decided that it was best to do nothing. If we left to avoid suspicion, it would only serve to make people more aware of what had happened."

"So you won't leave again?" I asked, almost afraid to hope.

"No, I don't think I could make myself leave again." She rose to her feet. "I'm much too selfish to be able to do that."

"So, what then? What can I do to make this easier for you?"

"I don't know," she said sadly. "You should go away, stay far away from me where you'll be safe."

"Anything but that," I said softly, taking another step forward.

Bella closed her eyes and made a sound, an odd hitching of breath that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

"Tell me what you're thinking," I said after a moment.

"I'm thinking that you'd be safer if you stayed away from me . . ." I could tell from the rhythm of her voice that she had been meaning to say something else, that she had only just stopped herself from finishing. I waited for her to continue, but she only shook her head.

"But what?" I asked, finally closing the remaining distance between us. When she opened her eyes and looked up into mine, something in them twisted something inside me. For one tiny fraction of a second, there was something there, something floating in their golden depths that tied my stomach into knots . . . knots that had nothing to do with terror. She shook her head again and closed her eyes.

"Wrong, so wrong. So horribly wrong," she muttered to herself.

It was her words, her words and the look in her eyes when she reopened them, but suddenly I had a feeling that I knew what it was she had been about to say.

"You were thinking I'd be safer if I stayed away from you," I said, backing her against the tree. She could have escaped, slipped away from me so quickly that I would never have been able to stop her, but she only stepped backward, her eyes on mine. As her back bumped against the tree, she raised her hands to my chest, as if trying to keep me from coming any closer, but the conflict in her eyes told another story.

"But you don't want me to," I finished for her. I waited anxiously for her to say something, for her to deny it, but she only gazed up at me with those beautiful eyes and slowly nodded her head.

"I don't want to, either," I said, feeling suddenly out of breath.

"I shouldn't want you to feel this way about me," she said softly, shaking her head.

"Too late," I whispered, my heart hammering in my ears. A tortured expression twisted her features once more, and she lifted her hands away from my chest.

"This is like nothing I've ever had to face before, every moment a constant struggle between wanting to kill you, wanting to keep you safe, and just . . . wanting to be _near_ you." She paused to take a breath, her eyes never leaving mine. "Never in all of my years have I felt this way. I didn't think it was possible to feel this way." She seemed to be searching for something in my face.

"Does it always feel like this?" she asked a moment later, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"I don't know," I told her. "I've never felt like this before, either." We stood that way for a long moment, eyes locked and not moving.

"So, what now?" I asked. Logically, I didn't know how we could make this work, but giving up on what we had was impossible. The thought of walking away from her now . . . it made something inside of me feel like it was dying. Bella lowered her eyebrows, a stubborn set to her jaw.

"I _have_ to win now, don't you see? It's why I _will_ win. Because I couldn't bear it if I didn't." Slowly, ever so carefully, she clenched her hands into fists and anchored them at her sides.

"I need to do this. I'd ask you to trust me, but . . ." She closed her eyes briefly and took a fortifying breath.

"I trust you," I said softly, remembering my earlier decision to show Bella that I, at least, had faith in her. Opening her eyes, she turned her face up to mine, and in that moment, it was true. Maybe this wouldn't end well, but I trusted Bella to try to prevent the unthinkable from happening, and wasn't that the best I could hope for?

Nodding to herself, Bella leaned slowly forward to rest her head on the right side of my chest. Here it was, our moment of truth, our test to see whether Bella could resist the call of my blood or whether she would end up killing me. I took shallow breaths, trying to move as little as possible. Arms still locked at her sides, Bella moved slowly toward my heart, rising on her toes until she was finally resting her ear over the place in my chest where it hammered away. It was so very difficult not to move, to keep my breathing even and my arms at my sides as she settled there for a moment, then slowly moved her ear upward. I felt the cold of her nose as it slid along the skin of my neck, and I tried not to shudder. Gooseflesh ran down my back as I waited for what seemed like years, loving the feel of Bella snuggled up beside me but terrified that at any moment she would lose the battle, and I would feel the pain of her teeth at my neck. The moments ticked by as she settled her head on my shoulder and stilled.

I knew when she was satisfied. I could see it when the tension went out of her shoulders and she melted into my chest. For a moment, I enjoyed the feeling of Bella snuggled up against me, and then she pulled away.

"I did it," Bella said, and the smile on her face when her eyes met mine was a victorious one. I smiled back, relief and joy rolling into one. She reached out hesitantly to lace her fingers through mine, and I responded without reservation, pulling her gently back toward the center of the meadow. We sat down amid the wildflowers and spent the next few moments in silence as I watched the sunlight reflecting on her skin.

"I think I had it wrong before," I told her as I traced a finger down her arm. "You aren't Athena, either. More like Artemis."

"Artemis, the huntress," she mused with a thoughtful little smile.

"Goddess of the moon," I said, glancing back down to the glitter of her skin. "The moon reflects the light of the sun, too, you know."

"True." She smiled faintly as we watched my fingers slide across the back of her hand. "But there's just one thing that doesn't quite fit the myth."

Curious, I lifted my eyes to hers.

"I don't remember the huntress ever falling in love with the stag," she said softly, and for a moment, I was lost in those beautiful amber eyes.

"No, I don't remember the stag falling in love with the huntress, either." We sat there in silence, watching each other as the words soaked in. Bella scooted closer to me, leaning forward to rest a hand on my knee.

"This is all so strange," she told me, uncertainty written in her features. "I'm used to being with my family, but this is so different."

"Because I'm . . . human?" I asked.

"Yes, and no." She lowered her eyebrows slightly in thought. "I've had years to watch Esme and Carlisle, Rosalie and Emmett." She smiled faintly. "Alice and Jasper. But Charlie and I have always been the confirmed bachelors, so to speak." She frowned. "I don't know how to be with someone this way." I nodded, finally understanding. Taking her hand from my knee, I held it between my own.

"I don't think you're doing too badly," I said. I thought back to Alice and Jasper, entering the cafeteria hand in hand. "A lot of it's instinct, right? Vampire or human, it can't be that different, can it?"

"I suppose not," she answered with a frown, and with a look of intense concentration, she slowly reached up toward my face. Carefully, so gently that I could barely feel the cool brush of her touch, she traced her finger along my cheek. When I opened my eyes again, hers were fixed on mine, waiting for a reaction. I smiled.

"See?" I told her. "You don't give yourself enough credit."

We stayed there for some time, eyes linked, tracing the contours of each other's hands and faces with hesitant touches. It was some time later when Bella looked up toward the sun and frowned.

"We should start back," she said. "It's getting a bit late in the day, and you need to eat more often than I do." I took one last look around the meadow, wishing the day didn't have to end, and rose to my feet. When I turned to help her, I found that she was already standing.

"Thank you," I said, "for this. It really is beautiful."

"It is," she agreed, "more beautiful than it was when I first found it."

"When you first found it?" I asked.

"We . . . move around quite a bit, but we've been in this area before." Faintly, I remembered the twins' story about how Bella and her family had made a treaty with their great-grandfather. "It's changed a bit since then, but it was always one of my favorite places."

Reluctantly turning my back on the meadow, I began to make my way through the ferns at the edge of the forest. Today had been a beautiful dream, and part of me wished it could have gone on forever. Reality, however, was intruding far sooner than it was welcome. My ankle, already sore from the morning's unexpected hike, was throbbing, and I was limping slightly.

"This is the right way, isn't it?" I asked when I realized that Bella was no longer beside me. She had stopped at the edge of the meadow and was watching me with slightly narrowed eyes. Walking slowly, she followed my path into the ferns and stopped at my side, a speculative expression on her face. She studied me for a moment.

"Your ankle is paining you," she noted, frowning. "Would you be averse to an alternate path back to your car?"

An alternate path? I wondered what she meant. Was there a shorter, more direct route through the forest? If so, why hadn't we taken it before? Was the terrain more treacherous?

"What kind of an alternate path?" I asked.

"A much faster one," she answered. I glanced down toward my ankle, wondering just what she had in mind.

"I don't know," I said.

"You won't have to walk," she told me, smiling secretly. "I can take you." I studied that smile, wondering what it was that I wasn't getting.

"What do you mean?" I asked, suspicious.

Bella turned around, her back toward me, and dropped her arms to her sides, palms facing up. I studied the smile on her face as she glanced back over her shoulder. Understanding came with disbelief. Bella was offering to carry me back to my car.

"You're kidding me, right?"

I wasn't questioning her intent, mostly just her sanity. I was bigger than Bella, taller than she was, and though I knew she was stronger, it seemed entirely . . . wrong. Her smile widening, Bella nodded her head. After a moment, her laughter danced through the air, and she turned back to face me.

"Why not?" she asked. I shook my head.

"It's just . . . not right," I told her. I wondered if she would be offended, but she only smiled.

"Your chivalrous ideals are appreciated, but as I'm not exactly a lady, I'm not sure they apply." She shook her head. "Edward, I can lift cars with one hand. I'll hardly notice you."

Uncertain, I frowned.

"I promise that you won't be too heavy. I promise that you won't get hurt." That mysterious smile came back to her lips. "And I really think you might enjoy this."

"What makes you say that?" I asked. Bella resumed her stance and glanced back over her shoulder again.

"Why don't you find out?" she challenged.

I stared at her for a moment, considering my options, then cautiously lifted my knee into her hand. It felt awkward.

"Other knee," Bella nudged, sounding impatient. I complied, feeling somewhat ridiculous. Bella was carrying my full weight now, but she didn't seem phased by it in the least.

"Lean forward," she instructed, "and put your arms around my neck." I did so, biting back a comment about how this was the most absurd thing I'd ever done in my life.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Okay," I said, not quite sure what to expect. And suddenly, we were flying.

I forgot how completely ridiculous I felt as the trees zoomed by, green and black blurs as Bella streaked through the forest, faster than a bullet. I closed my eyes, expecting to feel the sting of twigs across my arms and face, but after a few seconds I realized that Bella was avoiding them, dodging subtly from side to side so quickly that I couldn't detect the motion. I wondered just how fast we were going, then decided that maybe I didn't want to know.

It was amazing, so much more so than running had ever been, to feel the wind in my face and see the colors of the forest as we flew by. I heard nothing but the sound of the air and the low, steady rhythm of Bella's breathing as we swept through the trees. And then suddenly, we were back in the parking lot. She lowered me gently onto the hood of my car and turned to face me. There was a smug smile on her lips.

"You knew I would like that," I accused, and her smile widened.

"I suspected," she said. "When you told me how much you loved running, how you loved the speed, I knew I had to convince you to do that some day." I considered her words.

"I still feel kind of ridiculous, though," I admitted. I leaned forward and slid off the hood of my car.

"Then I'll never make you do it again, I promise," she said, stepping toward the passenger's side.

"We'll have to talk about that later," I said as I leaned over to open the door for her. Laughing, she stepped inside, then turned to face me so that the car door stood between us. Her laughter faded away, and suddenly she was looking at me in a way that made my knees feel like jelly. I felt my heart speed up, but I couldn't look away, and neither, apparently, could Bella. I didn't have a lot of experience with these things, but that look was written into the human genome . . . and, unless I was mistaken, the vampire one, too.

I leaned forward slightly, stopping myself before I made a terrible mistake.

"Don't look at me like that unless you mean it," I told her softly. She smiled faintly, tentatively. Her hands were curled into fists at her sides.

"I think I mean it," she whispered, her eyes never leaving mine. That was all the encouragement I needed.

Leaning forward slowly, I stopped just a hair's breadth away from her lips and waited for a moment before closing the rest of the distance. For a second, I expected her to slip away, to pull back from me and run as she had in the meadow, but Bella didn't move, and that second was all I gave her. After that, my brain stopped working.

The smell of her, the scent that settled in her hair, was nothing compared to the taste of her lips. I couldn't get enough of it. I wanted to get closer, to wrap my arms around her and drown in her, but there was something in my way, some barrier preventing me from moving forward—_the car door_, a faint voice whispered in the back of my mind. I was wishing Bella would just rip the door off its hinges when I suddenly realized that Bella was still, too still, and I pulled away abruptly. She was frozen in place, with her eyes closed and her hands fisted at her sides. She wasn't breathing.

"Uh oh," I whispered. Bella opened her eyes, her expression strained. I waited for her to relax, for the wildness to fade from her eyes. After a moment, she took a deep breath and sighed.

"Well then," was all she said.

"I guess that experiment was a failure," I muttered, disappointed. Bella shook her head faintly.

"More of a success, I'd say." A smile blossomed across her face. "I think I'm getting better at this."

"Come on," she said, settling into the passenger's seat, "it's getting late. Let's get you home."

...

A giant "thank you" to everyone still reading and reviewing this!

I struggled quite a bit with the second half of this chapter. Bella carrying Edward back to his car seemed . . . awkward (am I being sexist? lol), but I didn't have all day for them to hike back, and, like Bella, I wanted Edward to experience vampire speed. In the end, I took the road less traveled and _embraced_ the awkwardness of the situation. I hope it worked.


	14. DETERMINED (MIND OVER MATTER)

14. DETERMINED  
_(MIND OVER MATTER)_

I drove slowly on the way back to Forks. Though our time in the meadow had passed, the magic of the day still lingered, and I was reluctant to return home and break the spell entirely. A peaceful sort of silence enveloped the car, and every now and then, when the turns in the road smoothed into straight stretches of pavement, I would lift my right hand from the steering wheel and reach across the seat toward the center of the car. Bella's hand was always waiting.

I pulled my eyes away from the road for a brief moment, just long enough to take in the sight of her in the passenger's seat. She was smiling softly, her hair blowing in the gentle breeze of the open window. She seemed perfectly relaxed, more at peace than I had ever seen her, and I couldn't help but feel as though whatever invisible barrier had stood between us had fallen. There was only one piece of the puzzle still missing.

"Bella?" I waited until she had turned her face toward me before I continued. "How old are you, really?"

Her expression seemed calm, but her eyes were unreadable as she studied me from her side of the car. She had evaded this question so many times before. I wondered how she would respond now.

"I was born in 1910," she said after a moment, surprising me with the ease of her reply.

"So you're . . . ninety-five?" I asked, puzzled. My math was right, I was certain, but something about her answer didn't make sense.

"Ninety-four," she said softly. "My birthday is in September."

I frowned in thought. I still didn't understand. Why had Bella kept this a secret for so long? When I glanced back over to her, she had lowered her eyebrows ever-so-slightly. She seemed . . . troubled.

"Bella, ninety-four is perfectly normal. People live to be ninety-four all the time." She shook her head faintly and turned to look out at the trees as they flew by outside the window.

"Not like this," she said sadly. I frowned again as I struggled to understand what she was feeling.

"Why didn't you want to tell me before?" I asked, trying to watch her and the road at the same time.

"Age is a number," she said, turning away from the window, "a quantifiable fact. I thought that knowing would make it all more real to you."

I remembered her words from the meadow, the raw emotion in her voice as she confessed wanting to be near me, and something clicked into place.

"You were afraid that knowing would scare me away," I said, certain enough of my answer that it came out as a statement, rather than as a question. She turned her eyes to mine but said nothing.

"Bella, it doesn't matter to me," I told her softly. "I don't care if you're ninety-four or five hundred and ninety-four." I rubbed the pad of my thumb across the back of her hand. "Did you think this would change the way I feel about you?"

She didn't answer, but her eyes lowered until they rested on the place where our hands were joined. I couldn't identify the emotion that brightened their golden depths, so I squeezed her fingers instead. Another moment passed by, and I felt the subtlest increase in pressure as she squeezed my hand gently in return.

"Can I ask another question, or is it your turn now?" I sent her a teasing grin, hoping to ease the sadness from her eyes. I was surprised to see a gentle smile spreading across her lips.

"It can be your turn for a little while, if you'd like," she said. I nodded.

"Okay." I tried to decide where best to begin. "Tell me about this boarding house where you worked."

"It was my mother's," she said, turning her eyes to look out into the growing darkness. "We lived in a little town in northwestern Pennsylvania, not far from Lake Erie. My father worked for the railroad during the week and only came home on the weekends. I was eight when he died. My mother and I had no other source of income, so we started taking in boarders."

As we approached a particularly curvy section of the highway, I pulled my hand reluctantly away from hers. In my head I was trying to imagine Bella as a little girl, growing up in some tiny hamlet in Pennsylvania nearly a century before.

"When I was fifteen, a new doctor moved into town," she continued. "He was recently married, so he brought along his new wife . . . and his widowed brother-in-law. Carlisle and Esme moved into a little house just off Main Street, but Charlie rented a room from us. He said he didn't want to crowd the newlyweds." A faint smile touched her lips for a moment, then vanished abruptly. She glanced down to where her right hand rested in her lap.

"Late one night in the spring of '28, the boarding house caught fire. Only two people made it out alive—three if you count me, but no one does." I rounded the last in a series of turns and reached down for her hand, suddenly needing to feel her cool skin against mine.

"My memories of that night are somewhat vague, but I know my nightgown caught fire as I was trying to escape. I must have panicked and run for the nearest source of water to douse the flames. Running is the worst thing to do when your clothes are on fire, but I was in no condition for rational thought. Charlie found me the next morning, lying in a stream in the woods behind the house."

She glanced back up from her lap to meet my gaze, and I was surprised to see that her expression seemed calm, though her eyebrows were lowered slightly, as if she were trying to remember the details of something half-forgotten.

"What happened to your mother?" I heard myself say. I immediately regretted asking—some part of me felt certain that I already knew the answer. Bella lowered her eyes to study our joined hands.

"She didn't make it out," she said simply. Her face was sculpted into a perfectly serene mask, but as hard as it was for me to read Bella, I could see something in her eyes that didn't quite . . . fit with the rest of her expression. I gave her fingers another squeeze.

"Charlie had been living with us for two years by then," Bella continued a moment later, lifting her face once more, "but he didn't spend much time at the boarding house, and I barely knew him. He kept to himself mostly, taking his meals with his family rather than eating with us, but he'd always been very kind to me on the rare occasions when we'd spoken." She frowned faintly.

"I was dying, slowly and painfully. I was covered in burns, and I'd breathed in flames as I'd run toward the stream. Charlie knew my body was too damaged to heal itself, but he was afraid that he wouldn't have the control necessary to . . . help me, so he took me to Carlisle instead. And Carlisle helped me the only way he could; he changed me."

I tried to envision it all—the old house engulfed in flames in the middle of the night. The horrified expressions of the townspeople as they awoke unexpectedly and glanced out their windows to discover what was happening. Bella running through the darkness, her nightgown in flames . . . I shook the image from my head.

"And . . . how did he do that?" I managed to ask. Bella turned her eyes toward me and smiled a sad smile.

"In the manner you're probably imagining. Not all vampire legends are myths. Some are based in fact." She glanced away again.

"What was it like?" I asked. The trace of a frown touched the corners of her lips.

"Difficult for Carlisle. He'd had years to learn to control his instincts, but even so, the instinct is still very strong."

"Chocolate cake," I said softly, feeling a layer of ice creep across my skin. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bella nod.

"For me, it was . . . excruciatingly painful." Her jaw set into a firm line for a few seconds before she relaxed. I was still trying to find the right words to say when she opened her lips to speak again.

"I wasn't the first Carlisle saved that way, and I wasn't the last. He'd found Charlie first, nearly half a century earlier. Charlie's horse had been spooked by something and had tried to throw him, but his boot was caught in the stirrup, and he found himself being dragged across the prairie. Carlisle heard his cries and came to investigate. When he saw the condition Charlie was in, he knew there was no way his medical skills could save him, so he did the only other thing he could think of doing."

"They traveled together for forty years, moving from town to town until Carlisle found Esme. She had fallen from a cliff, her injuries so severe that they had taken her directly to the morgue, even though her heart was still beating. I came along a few years later." As Bella grew silent, I thought back to all of the stories I'd heard, to all of the legends I'd read on the internet a week before_._

"So, you have to be dying, then, to become . . ." Bella shook her head.

"No, that's Carlisle's way. He'd never do this to someone if there was any other choice." I nodded.

"What about the others?" I asked as I pulled into the driveway in front of my house and parked.

"Rosalie was next, just a few years after I joined the family, then Emmett two years later. We were in Appalachia at the time, and Rose had been out hunting alone when she came across him. He'd been out hunting as well, in the traditional human manner, but a bear had gotten the better of him. There was something about him that touched her, she says, something that made her need to save him, so she carried him for more than a hundred miles, knowing she would never have the control necessary to do it on her own. She brought him to Carlisle and asked for his help, just as Charlie had done with me." She glanced back down to the hand in her lap.

"It's only now that I can fully appreciate how difficult that must have been for her, but it all worked out in the end. They fell in love, she and Emmett, and they've been together ever since. Sometimes they live apart from Carlisle and the others, just as Charlie and I do, but as a married couple. Rose hates to move because we always start out pretending to be so young that she and Emmett can't act like a married couple, but the younger we pretend to be when we first move to a new place, the longer we can stay. They're in their last year of high school now, so she's a bit happier. She's already started to plan their next wedding." She smiled faintly as she glanced out into the darkness. I followed her gaze toward the front door.

"You can come in if you want," I said after a moment, praying that she wouldn't go home just yet, that she would stay with me a little while longer. "Mom's working the evening shift, so she won't be home until after midnight." Bella nodded.

Hand in hand, we made our way up the front walk. As I held the front door open for her to step inside, my stomach growled.

"I should have brought you home sooner," Bella said, concern evident in her eyes as she raised them to mine. "You didn't have lunch."

"It's all right," I told her, hoping my smile would ease her guilt. "I had a big breakfast." I closed the front door behind us and followed Bella toward the kitchen, tossing my keys onto the table as I passed. I headed for the refrigerator and spent a few moments taking inventory of leftovers. When I turned toward the counter with my arms full of plastic containers, Bella was watching me with an odd expression on her face.

"What is it?" I asked. She narrowed her eyes slightly.

"I was trying to remember the human sensation of hunger," she said. "We have our thirst, of course, but I know it isn't the same." She frowned and shook her head. "After all of this time, I can't remember."

I set the containers on the counter and reached into the cabinet for a plate. "So you and Chief Swan aren't related at all?" I asked as Bella took a seat at the table. She shook her head.

"No, not biologically. Our physical resemblance is only a coincidence. In the beginning, it seemed perfectly logical for us to pretend to be father and daughter, but it didn't take long for us to realize how much we have in common. After a few years of playing the part, it felt like we really were family. It's more than a cover story now. Charlie really is like a father to me."

I considered her words as I added a slice of meatloaf to my plate. "Rosalie and Jasper aren't really twins, then?" Bella shook her head.

"No, but they look alike, so it's easiest to tell people that they're siblings. It's always best to build our cover stories around what people will automatically assume; it makes them less likely to question us."

I nodded to myself as I carried my plate toward the microwave. "And Alice and Jasper?" I asked, remembering where Bella's story had left off earlier. "Where do they come in?"

"Alice and Jasper didn't join our family the same way as everyone else. _They_ found _us_." Bella smiled sadly as she watched me reach into a cabinet for a glass. "Jasper's first family was . . . quite different from our own, as was his lifestyle." She glanced up at me carefully, and it took me a few seconds to realize what she was trying not to say out loud. I nodded to show her that I understood.

"He lived that way for quite some time, but he grew dissatisfied with his existence and struck out on his own. Alice found him several years later." She smiled faintly as she watched me pull my plate out of the microwave and carry it toward the table. "She was waiting for him, of course. She'd seen our family, as well, and she knew that she and Jasper would join us some day."

"She'd . . . seen you?" I asked as I sat down across the table from her. Bella smiled at my puzzled expression.

"Sometimes, certain members of our kind are . . . gifted," she explained.

"Gifted how?" I asked, spearing a piece of meatloaf with my fork.

"Alice can see the future," Bella said simply. My fork froze in midair, just inches from my mouth, and I raised my eyebrows at her.

"Seriously?"

"Well, not so much the future as the possibilities of the future. She sees things that _might_ happen, but the future is always in flux. It's always changing as the present changes, as people make decisions and change their minds." She glanced down at the tabletop. "Very few things are ever entirely set in stone."

Something about the way she glanced down at that moment made me wonder what she was thinking, but I let it go as she lifted her head again.

"Things like the weather, for example, are fairly easy for her to predict. The stock market, as well."

"Does that happen often?" I asked as I took another bite of my meatloaf. "Being gifted?"

"Yes and no. Alice isn't the only one of us who has special abilities. Jasper does, as well. He was quite charismatic as a human, able to convince people to agree or disagree with something quite easily. Now, in this life, he has the ability to influence the emotions of those around him, to calm people when they are upset or excite them when they are relaxed."

I chewed a piece of potato as I considered what she was saying.

"So these . . . gifts . . . they come from some ability you have when you're human?"

"Perhaps. We don't really know. To some extent, we bring our human traits with us into this life—our personalities, our interests, our dislikes. It seems entirely reasonable that some of our strongest traits may be intensified, just as our strength and our senses are. Alice may very well have had some sort of precognition, just as Jasper had his charisma." She frowned. "Some gifts, though, are harder to understand."

"What do you mean?"

"Charlie, for example. His ability has no human talent to explain it."

"Charlie?" I asked. Bella smiled faintly.

"Charlie's gift is a form of telekinesis, though not the traditional one. Rather than moving objects with his mind, he can stop them. If someone were to throw something, for example, he could stop it in midair and cause it to fall directly to the ground." I stared at her, the answer to a mystery finally becoming clear.

"The bullets. In the alley. That was him?" Bella nodded.

"We could have caught them if we'd been closer to you, but we were still in the car when they were fired. Even we couldn't get across the parking lot and around those criminals in time to catch them, which is why I'm thankful that Charlie was there."

"How does it work?" I asked.

"It's a bit difficult to explain. It isn't like a barrier or a shield; it doesn't stop everything. He says it's more like a lasso. He has to think about which objects specifically he wants to stop. He's practiced using it on me before, and I can attest to that. It doesn't feel like you're running into something. It feels more like you're being pulled from behind." She smiled faintly. "However it works, it's effective. No criminal has ever managed to shoot either a police officer or an innocent bystander when Charlie's around. And he doesn't even have to try to catch someone fleeing the scene of a crime. They tend to trip and fall down a lot, especially when Charlie stops their feet from moving forward while they're trying to run away." I considered that as I finished the last few bites of food on my plate.

"Alice and Jasper and Charlie," I said, thinking aloud. Bella frowned.

"And me, supposedly."

"Really?" I asked, intrigued. "What's your gift?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing." She sighed. "We have a friend in Alaska who is certain that I'm some kind of a shield. That's where we've been for the last two years, Charlie and I. When Carlisle and the others came to Forks, we went to Alaska so that I could try to understand how to use my gift." She shook her head. "We didn't make any progress, so we gave up—for now—and came here to join the others."

"A shield," I repeated, trying to understand what she meant. "What kind of a shield?"

"I don't know," Bella admitted. "If I didn't trust Eleazar, I'd think he was mistaken. Sometimes I still do."

I studied her across the table as I finished the water in my glass. "What about Alice? Where did she come from?" Bella sighed.

"Alice is a mystery. She doesn't remember anything of her human life. Her earliest memory is of waking up alone as a vampire with visions of Jasper's face swimming in her mind. Whoever created her had vanished, and she had no one to help her, no one to teach her. If she hadn't seen her future with us, there's no telling what sort of creature she might have become." Contrary to the bleak picture she presented, Bella smiled warmly. "Instead, she just became Alice. She accepted our vegetarian way of life before even meeting another of our kind, and when she finally found Jasper, she introduced it to him, as well."

"So, are most vampires like Jasper's first family?" I asked.

"Yes. We know of only one other family that chooses to live as we do."

"In Alaska," I said, thinking aloud. Bella nodded, watching me from across the table.

"Most of our kind are content with their . . . traditional prey. Those we come into contact with from time to time are baffled by us. Our respect for human life makes no sense to them."

I only barely managed to hold back a shudder. For seventeen years, I had assumed that I was at the top of the food chain, safe from any predator in existence. Now that I knew the truth, I was starting to see things in a completely different light.

"Are there many other vampires out there?" I asked as I rose to carry my dishes to the sink.

"No, not many, and most are nomads. Traveling frequently is a necessity. It's nearly impossible for their feeding habits to go unnoticed if they stay in one area for very long." I glanced back over my shoulder to find her watching me carefully, probably wondering how our conversation was affecting me. Doing my best to appear nonchalant, I added dish detergent to the running water.

"So being vegetarians makes it possible for you and your family to have a home," I observed, trying to steer the conversation in a direction that Bella might be more comfortable with. Rising from her chair, she made her way to the sink and reached for the dishtowel.

"Yes, and to live as a family." I gave her a questioning look, not understanding what she meant.

"Our emotions can be very volatile at times," Bella explained, "so it's uncommon for more than two or three of our kind to stay together for any length of time. Families as large as ours are nearly unheard of, but they seem to be the norm for those of us who choose to live this way. There are eight of us in my family and six in the family in Alaska." She paused to reach for the plate I had just placed on the draining board. "Carlisle believes that by controlling the most inhuman of our instincts, we are more able to embrace what humanity we have left. We stay together as a family because we care about each other more in the way that a human family would."

Pulling the plug from the drain, I watched as Bella dried and put away each piece. Never once did she have to ask or search for the place where something belonged. She seemed to have memorized the contents of our cabinets.

Giving the kitchen one final glance, I noticed my keys still lying on the table and walked over to put them away. As I reached up to hang them on the key peg, something tugged at the back of my mind.

"How did you get into the house this morning?" I asked. "Mom always locks the door when she leaves. She never forgets." I turned to find an angelic smile spreading across Bella's lips.

"Surely you don't think a vampire would have any difficulty getting into a locked house?" I stared at her for a moment, considering the innocent expression on her face.

"I guess the whole having-to-invite-you-in thing is a myth, too, huh?"

Bella let out a breathy laugh, her smile widening. Something about the way the light danced in her eyes seemed mischievous . . . or guilty.

"I'd already been in your house. To get the keys to your car, remember?"

I nodded, lost in thought. "Are those the only times you've been in my house?" I asked as I walked toward where she stood, just outside the living room door. Bella hesitated, then shook her head.

"When?"

"Most nights," she admitted, an odd tone creeping into her voice as she followed me into the living room. I leaned over to turn on the end table lamp.

"Really?" I asked, turning back to face her. Bella slid gracefully down onto the sofa.

"I . . . check on you," she said, angling her body sideways and pulling her legs onto the cushion in front of her. "I wanted to know that you were safe." I studied her face for a moment, then sat down beside her.

"So, what do you do . . . when you're here?"

"Mostly I watch you sleep." I stared at her, not certain how I should react. I knew I should be freaked out by this, but somehow I wasn't. Sneaking into someone's house at night was hardly normal human behavior, but Bella wasn't exactly a normal human. Bella was a vampire, and if I considered the more traditional view of vampires, sneaking into my house at night was perfectly normal . . . for her, at least.

I watched a frown mar her beautiful features.

"I'm sorry if it makes you feel uncomfortable," she said. "I couldn't be with you during the day, and it was the only way I could be near you." Emotion swirled in her troubled amber eyes. "I didn't mean to upset you," she said again.

Reaching across the sofa, I took her hands in mine.

"I'm not," I told her, but Bella looked less than convinced. "Besides," I added with a teasing grin, "I don't know very many guys who would complain if they woke up and found a beautiful woman in their bedroom in the middle of the night." Bella smiled faintly, though her eyes still seemed wary.

Sitting there in the faint light of the end table lamp, Bella was unbelievably lovely. Just the sight of that smile made me want to slide across the sofa, put my arms around her, and lean my head toward hers, but Bella was sitting sideways with her legs folded in front of her body. It was hardly an ideal position for snuggling. I wondered if her body language was intentional. We'd been very close in the meadow this afternoon—we'd even kissed—but what if she was close to the limits of her self-control? Had she used it all in the meadow? Was she no longer as sure of herself as she had been earlier? Pushing back my disappointment, I decided it was best to stay on my side of the sofa and let Bella make the first move.

"How long have you been sneaking into my room at night?" I asked.

"For a couple of weeks now," she confessed, looking slightly less ashamed of herself now that she realized I wasn't angry with her. "The first night I came here was the night after you were invited to the dance . . . three times." She frowned thoughtfully, glancing down to where I rubbed my thumbs across the backs of her hands. "I had a lot to think about that night, and for some reason that I couldn't explain, I needed to be near you to do it." She smiled weakly, glancing up at me through her eyelashes.

"I hadn't intended to listen that day in the cafeteria, but then I overheard what Jessica Stanley was asking you. I couldn't understand why I suddenly felt as though there were some unbearable weight on my chest." She glanced back up to meet my eyes. Something in the depths of hers pulled at me, and I couldn't look away. "When you refused her, the weight lifted, but I was terrified by the feeling, and I couldn't stop wondering about your reasons for refusing. Would you really be unable to attend because you were visiting your father, or were you simply refusing her for Newton's sake? Would you have accepted her request otherwise?"

Lowering my eyebrows, I frowned and shook my head. The sound of Bella's laughter filled the room for a moment before she continued.

"Alice understood, of course, and she was smug in a way that only Alice can be. I was angry with her and anxious about your reasons for refusing Jessica's invitation as we walked to class that day. The wondering tore at me all through Mr. Banner's boring lecture. I wanted to speak to you so desperately, to ask you if you really didn't prefer Jessica, if there was some other girl whom you preferred instead, someone more deserving of your affections, but I knew I shouldn't speak of it to you." She frowned faintly. "I told you that it was best for us not to be friends, that we shouldn't talk, but I was speaking more to myself than I was to you, trying to remind myself of all of the reasons why I should stay away, but I could feel myself giving in. Then you tried to reassure me that you wouldn't share the truth of what had happened in the parking lot, and suddenly I was reminded of all that stood between us." Her frown deepened. "I spoke unkindly. I apologize for that. I was angry with myself, and I took it out on you." I smiled down at her.

"I forgive you," I said softly. The ghost of a smile touched her lips.

"And then you were approached by Angela Weber. Angela is a good person, and some part of me knew that someone like her would be best for you, but all I could feel was terror, a sort of fear that I don't ever remember feeling before. Did you really prefer Angela, but your plans prevented you from attending the dance with her? Was she the one you wanted? You didn't sound as though you were refusing for anyone else's sake that time, but all I could think was that one day you wouldn't refuse. And that only made me feel worse." She glanced back down to our joined hands.

"Then came Lauren Mallory's invitation in the parking lot." I laughed at the sour expression that settled on her face. "Utterly and entirely unworthy of you. I was angry that she would even think of you when you were so obviously above her. I wanted to stay by the school, to listen from afar and see what you would say, but Alice forced me to walk through the parking lot. She was enjoying my reactions far more than she should have. She'd known what I would feel for you before I did, just as she'd known that I wouldn't be able to resist it, no matter how hard I tried. Alice is usually right, but sometimes she enjoys being right a bit too much. That's why she was in such a good mood that day. She knew I was finally caving in." Bella sighed.

"So I found myself slipping through your window that night. I was trying to understand what was happening to me, telling myself that I couldn't possibly be feeling what I thought I was feeling. Things like this don't happen between my kind and yours. I thought I was losing my mind." She smiled faintly, reaching up with one hand to brush a piece of hair away from my forehead. "I was standing beside your bed, looking down on you as you dreamed, and then you sighed in your sleep, and you smiled. In that moment, all of the things I had been trying to tell myself went right out of my head, and I couldn't stop myself from _feeling_ what I was trying not to feel. Suddenly nothing else mattered, and I didn't want to fight it anymore."

She laid her hand against my cheek, her golden eyes shining up into mine. I couldn't have looked away for the world. Seconds ticked by—or minutes or hours. I didn't care. Sitting there with Bella in that perfect moment, time lost all meaning.

It was some time later when I realized that Bella had scooted closer to me on the sofa. Somehow, without me noticing, she had slid her legs off to the side, so that they were no longer between us. We were close enough now that I could smell the natural scent of her, what I had first assumed to be her perfume. She was as intoxicating as ever, and I wanted nothing more than to lean across that tiny distance between us and pull her into my arms, but some little voice in the back of my mind whispered a warning. I had spent all morning hiking through the woods and a good part of the afternoon sitting in the dirt under the sun. Although Bella smelled like heaven, I had a feeling that I probably wasn't at my best. I pulled my eyes away from hers and glanced toward the staircase.

"Would you mind if I took a shower?" I asked. Bella shook her head. If she was surprised by my unexpected request, she didn't show it. I pulled away from her reluctantly, promising myself that this would be the quickest shower of my life. "I'll be right back," I promised.

I flew up the stairs to my bedroom, barely looking as I grabbed the essentials and headed for the bathroom. I was in such a hurry that I had to go back twice—once for a towel and again for a t-shirt. As I showered, I reran the details of Bella's story through my mind, trying to imagine what her life had been like in the late 1920s. Aside from flappers and the stock market crash, I didn't really know much about that era. As I brushed my teeth, my mind caught on a detail of her story that I had overlooked. I tried to decide how to phrase my question as I tossed my dirty clothes into the laundry hamper and headed back down the stairs.

When I returned to the living room, Bella was still sitting in the exact same position as when I had left. I couldn't resist returning the bright smile she aimed in my direction when she turned to face me. I sat down on the cushion beside her, and she scooted closer, resting her head on my shoulder. Still smiling down into her face, I slid my arm around her.

"Bella?" I asked. She tilted her head so that she could see my face and waited for me to continue. "Why did your father live apart from Dr. Cullen and his wife in Pennsylvania?" I saw Bella smile in the dim lamplight.

"They were newlyweds," she answered. "Newly wed vampires aren't that much different from newly wed humans, at least not in some respects. Charlie wanted to give them privacy." I nodded, leaning back against the sofa cushions. I could have left it at that, but my curiosity wasn't satisfied. Still, I was embarrassed enough that I couldn't quite meet Bella's eyes.

"So . . . um . . . everything pretty much . . . works the same way?" I asked. I felt Bella shift at my side and realized that she was holding in laughter. When I glanced down at her she didn't seem embarrassed in the least, but she was definitely amused by _my_ embarrassment.

"Basically," she answered, but then the laughter faded from her eyes, and her smile slid away. She pulled back from me slightly, just enough that we were face to face.

"Edward, it can't ever be that way, not for us."

"Why not?" I asked. It wasn't that I would ever dream of trying to push Bella into something that she didn't want, but it seemed odd that in one day Bella could control her instincts enough to curl up beside me, to kiss me, yet she gave up on this so easily. I watched something like sadness enter her eyes.

"I'm strong, Edward, incredibly strong. It's a part of what I am. Lifting boulders, pushing cars out of the way—those are things that come naturally to me, but I have to be conscious of every move I make when I'm with you." She reached up to trace her finger along my cheek. "Every time I touch your face, I have to be careful that I don't use too much force and accidentally crush your skull." Lowering her hand, she reached down to lace her fingers through mine. "Every time I hold your hand, I have to remember not to squeeze your fingers too hard for fear of breaking every bone." She frowned up into my eyes. "Even if I were able to control my thirst when we were that close, it would be too easy for me to forget myself. In one thoughtless moment I could put my arms around you and crush your spine or reach up to brush my hand along your jaw and break your neck." She closed her eyes, her face contorting into an expression of pain.

"I won't risk that, Edward. I can't. I can't risk hurting you." She opened her eyes again, looking up into mine as she frowned. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know that, this day in age, that's often something that's expected in a relationship." I shook my head.

"I'd never expect that from you, Bella. I'd never want you to do something that you aren't comfortable with. I'm not that kind of a guy."

The way she looked up at me then, the look in her eyes, pulled at me. I wanted, more than anything, to put my finger under her chin and tilt her face up to mine, but after the incident in the parking lot at the hiking trail, I didn't think it was such a good idea. Bella may have been happy with the results of that little experiment, but I didn't think it was safe to repeat it just yet. I was relieved when she leaned forward and rested her head against my shoulder again. I twisted toward her, feeling much better when I could wrap both of my arms around her at once.

Sitting there on the sofa with Bella was heaven. She was cool and as hard as a marble statue, but she still felt perfect in my arms. I buried my face in her hair as she slid her arms around me, and I breathed in the perfume of her scent. After a moment of consideration, I gave into temptation and pressed my lips against the top of her head. Bella sighed and snuggled closer.

"You always smell wonderful right after a shower," she mumbled into my chest. "You're warm from the water, so your scent is stronger, and you smell more like yourself and less like the things you've been around all day."

I froze, wondering suddenly if the shower had been a mistake. I had wondered earlier if Bella had used up her reserves of self-control in the meadow. Was I making this more difficult for her? Would it be easier for her now if I still smelled like dirt and sweat? Bella pulled away, her eyes wide.

"I don't mean it that way!" She shook her head. "I'm not in danger of harming you, I promise."

I frowned. "I don't want to make this harder for you." Bella smiled sadly.

"I don't imagine it will ever be _easy,_ but I made a decision this afternoon, and I am determined that I will not allow myself to hurt you. If I should feel that there's any danger, I'll be able to leave."

"You're very strong-willed, aren't you?" I asked after a moment, lifting one corner of my mouth in a teasing grin.

"You could say that." Her smile widened, and she laughed. "Charlie would just say that I'm as stubborn as a mule." I couldn't help but smile back. "But I'm also growing used to you," Bella continued, her expression becoming more thoughtful, "to your scent. By spending so much time with you today, I've grown somewhat desensitized to it, and that helps. The more time I spend with you, the more tolerable it becomes."

"What if you leave?" I asked, trying not to think about being apart from her. "How will it be when you come back?"

Bella frowned. "I don't know how much of that I will lose. I don't think it will be as tolerable as it is now, but I'm sure it won't be as difficult as it was before."

I smiled, sliding my arms around her once more. "Then I have the perfect solution."

"What's that?" Bella asked.

"Don't leave," I answered, pulling her against me.

Bella leaned into my arms again, just as close as she had been before, and I rested my chin on the top of her head. I heard her take a deep breath, then release it as a sigh. Through the fabric of my t-shirt, I could feel her smiling against my chest.

"What do I smell like?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. Bella chuckled and hummed thoughtfully to herself for a moment.

"Warm . . . and sweet . . . like sunshine and honey, with a trace of something that smells like spring—lilacs."

I frowned, wondering exactly what the combination of sunshine, honey, and lilacs smelled like to her. I'd never realized that I smelled like anything other than soap and deodorant.

We stayed that way, wrapped up in each other, for some time. Bella snuggled closer against me as I rested my cheek against the top of her head, closed my eyes, and breathed in her perfume. Burying my hands in her hair, I wrapped the soft curls around my fingers and dreamed of somehow staying this way forever. Happy and content with Bella in my arms, it wasn't long before I found myself drifting off toward sleep. I fought to stay awake, but as I tried to stifle a yawn, Bella pulled away and frowned.

"It's getting late, isn't it?" she asked. "You need to rest." I shook my head. I was tired, but I didn't want to go to sleep just yet. I didn't want to miss out on one moment with her.

"I'm okay," I tried to protest, but she was already on her feet and reaching over to switch off the lamp. Taking my hand in hers, she pulled me toward the stairs. I tried to stand my ground, but Bella was stronger than I was, so I conceded defeat and followed her up the steps. She headed straight for my bedroom and sat down on the edge of my mattress, watching me expectantly until I pulled back the covers and crawled between the sheets. I didn't like it. My arms felt too empty, and Bella was too far away.

I rolled onto my side, sliding over to the edge of the pillow and patting the space beside me. Needing no encouragement, Bella lay down on top of the covers facing me, her head on the other end of my pillow and her hand on the mattress between us. This, I thought, was the perfect way to fall asleep.

I frowned, an idle thought slipping through my foggy brain. "I don't drool in my sleep . . . or talk . . . or do anything embarrassing, do I?" I asked suspiciously. The corners of Bella's lips twitched.

"No, not a word, but you do smile a lot. And you sigh."

"I must be dreaming about you," I said, the last word coming out as a yawn.

"Good night, Edward," Bella whispered as my eyes drifted shut. I felt myself sliding into sleep, visions of a beautiful girl with topaz eyes and mahogany hair dancing behind my eyelids, but one last thought pushed its way into my mind, and I forced my eyes open one more time.

"Bella?" From the other end of my pillow, I could see her watching me. "What we were talking about before, about you and me not ever . . ." I trailed off, waiting until she nodded against the pillowcase. "Have you ever . . . before?" In the darkness, I saw her shake her head.

"No, I've never felt like this about anyone," she whispered.

"Me, neither," I breathed. I wanted to tell her that I had caught what she had said earlier—that she was afraid to risk it, not that it was impossible. I wanted to tell her that I had faith that someday she would have enough control. I wanted her to know that I would wait for that day, would wait forever if need be, because there would never be another for me, but my eyelids were too heavy to hold open, so I lay my hand over hers, and I let my eyes close on the vision of her face lying across from mine as I drifted off into dreams.

. . . . .

_**I apologize for taking so long to post this chapter - real life is my only excuse. And THANK YOU to everyone still reading and reviewing! I hope that Bella's back story and the explanation of the "magic bullets" will make up for the wait.  
**_

_**And, on another note, I made another small change from cannon in this chapter (not related directly to Bella's back story or Charlie's abilities). Five—no six—points to anyone who can spot it (and there is your hint) . . .  
**_


	15. FAMILY (THE CULLENS)

15. FAMILY  
_(THE CULLENS)_

The dull light of another dreary day was fighting its way through my bedroom windows as I awoke the next morning. Clenching my eyes shut against it, I tried to hold fast to the dream I'd been having. It had been a strange dream—a wonderful dream—about a flowering meadow and a beautiful girl whose skin sparkled in the sun, but the images were too clear, too real to have been the product of my imagination, and I realized with a start that it hadn't been a dream at all.

Rolling onto my back, I stared up at the ceiling and tried to piece together the events of the day before. Every wonderful and terrifying moment came back to me with breathtaking clarity, and I turned my head to examine the pillowcase. There it was, the faint impression where Bella's head had rested as I drifted off to sleep, but where was she now? Had she left in the middle of the night? Propping myself up on my elbows, I turned to survey the other side of the room . . . and found myself face to face with an angel.

Bella was sitting beside my bed, looking even more beautiful than she had in my dreams. She was watching me carefully, her unreadable eyes focused on my face. It was like waking to discover that a guardian angel had been watching over me in the night . . . and had decided not to leave with the rising of the sun. I couldn't help but smile.

"Hey," I said.

"Good morning," she said softly, an answering smile spreading across her face. Her gaze shifted slightly, coming to rest just above my forehead, and her lips tilted into a lop-sided grin. My hair was usually a mess when I woke up in the morning. Apparently this morning was no exception.

"You stayed," I said, trying to take in the sight of her with eyes that were still bleary from sleep. It took me a moment to register the dark blue sweater she wore, and I frowned. "You changed."

"I didn't think it wise to wear the same clothes two days in a row. If your neighbors notice, they may think I spent the night." The corners of her lips curved into a playful smile. "And I had to get my truck. I have to be able to explain how I got here this morning, don't I?"

"Your truck?" I asked, sitting up in bed and placing both feet on the floor. "Wasn't it here last night?" Bella shook her head.

"Alice drove it home while you were in the shower. I knew I'd be staying, so I decided to call her and ask her to come get it. Of course, as soon as I made that decision, she knew I'd be calling and what I would be asking her to do, so the call itself wasn't really necessary."

I nodded as I tried to piece together the methodology of Alice's gift. It seemed like a very complicated thing, and I wasn't awake enough yet to sort it all out.

"How . . . tolerable is it this morning?" I asked, remembering what she had said the day before. Bella smiled softly, sliding out of my desk chair and taking a seat beside me on the bed.

"A bit better than I expected it to be. I was with you for most of the night, and when I did leave, I was gone very briefly." She frowned softly as she met my eyes. "I didn't like being away from you," she admitted, leaning against me. She rested her head on my shoulder and sighed. "I love you," she whispered.

I had heard those words before, of course, but they had never sounded quite as beautiful as they did now, passing through Bella's lips. I turned slightly, sliding my arm around her back and resting my cheek against the top of her head. She responded without hesitation, pressing herself more tightly against me.

"I love you," I whispered back. It struck me, suddenly, just how small those words seemed. They weren't big enough or strong enough to explain everything that was happening between us.

"So you just sat there and watched me sleep all night?" I asked, amused by how boring that sounded. Bella nodded, then pulled away to meet my eyes.

"I did have to leave when your mother came home and looked in on you."

I frowned as I glanced back toward the wall. I had forgotten that my mother was still asleep on the other side of it. "What did you do?" I asked, careful to keep my voice low. "Hide under the bed?" Bella chuckled quietly.

"Something like that." She smiled mysteriously. "I have ways of disappearing when I need to."

My eyes wandered around the room, searching for the places Bella might have hidden, but my mind was already elsewhere. Bella and I were being quiet, but what if my mother somehow heard us? Lifting a finger to my lips, I pulled myself reluctantly from her side and whispered, "I'll be right back."

Limping as silently as I could into the hallway, I opened my mother's bedroom door just enough to peek inside. She was, as I had hoped, fast asleep. I closed the door again and headed to the bathroom to tame my unruly hair before returning to Bella's side.

"Let's go downstairs," I whispered.

We made our way down the staircase hand in hand. My ankle was still stiff, so I tried not to make too much noise as I limped down the steps. Bella, on the other hand, glided, somehow managing to be completely silent without even seeming to try. If I hadn't been able to feel her fingers in mine, I might have wondered if she was really there at all.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Bella watched carefully as I reached into the refrigerator for ingredients and started making an omelet. Her eyes missed nothing. I felt as though she were memorizing my every move.

"Am I better than the Food Network?" I teased after a few moments. Bella smiled, but her eyes never left my hands.

"You're very self-sufficient, aren't you?" she asked instead. I shrugged.

"Mom's always worked shifts. She made sure I knew how to take care of myself." Bella's eyes moved briefly to my face before returning to my hands, but she said nothing. She only continued to watch me in silence as I finished making my breakfast, then followed as I carried my plate toward the table. As she had the morning before, she sat down in the chair across from mine and watched me eat.

"I was considering something last night while you were asleep," she said after a few moments.

"What's that?"

"Since your schedule for the day is free, how would you like to meet my family . . . officially?"

I paused, the fork halfway to my lips as I stared across the table at her. I had known that Bella was working toward this, waiting until her family was ready to meet me, but I hadn't expected that day to come so soon. Her face fell as she registered my expression.

"Are you afraid?" she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

I shook my head. I wasn't afraid—at least, not in the way she meant. Her father had saved my life in Seattle, so he obviously meant me no harm, and I'd known her uncle for a couple of years now; after two surgeries, being afraid of him seemed completely absurd. No, my fear was of something entirely different. I frowned as I tried to find the right words to explain it.

"You said things like _us_ don't happen." Bella nodded hesitantly. "I'm not like them. What if they don't approve?"

"Don't approve because . . . you're human?" Bella asked, lowering her eyebrows. I nodded.

Bella slid her hand across the tabletop and entwined her fingers with mine. "We were all human once, Edward. It's hardly something they'd hold against you." She glanced down to our joined hands and smiled. "Besides, Alice says they'll love you."

"Really?" I asked. Bella nodded. I studied her face for a moment.

"So they aren't as confused about us as they were?"

"They still are, a bit, but yesterday was a turning point, of sorts. It went a long way toward making up their minds. Now that I'm decided, Alice can assure everyone that this won't turn out . . . badly."

So Alice _had_ seen the possibility that yesterday might have ended differently. "What does Alice see now?" I asked. Bella averted her eyes, and I mentally kicked myself.

"Nothing is ever entirely certain," she answered vaguely, an odd tone creeping into her voice. "Yesterday just ruled out some possibilities."

Knowing that Bella would speak no more on the subject, I turned my attention back to my omelet and wondered again what Bella wasn't telling me. Several moments passed by in silence before Bella tilted her face toward the ceiling.

"Your mother is awake," she said casually. Swallowing a half-chewed bite of toast, I stared across the table at her. I expected her to hide, as she said she had done the night before, but Bella didn't move an inch.

"You aren't going to hide this time, are you?" I realized. The hint of a smile touched her lips.

"I'll have to meet her eventually, Edward," Bella said. "It's not terribly early in the morning, is it? You're usually in school by now."

I shook my head. She was right. It wasn't too early for Bella to be at my house, and she would eventually have to meet my mother, but I had hoped to plan their meeting a bit better than this. Bella wasn't just some girl I knew; she was important, and I wanted my mother to understand that. As I finished eating my breakfast, I tried to think of how to tell her, of what words to say, but I couldn't keep my eyes from drifting toward the doorway or my ears from straining to hear her footsteps on the stairs. After a couple of minutes, she shuffled around the corner wearing an old t-shirt and a pair of jeans. She stopped short as she caught sight of Bella. The sleepiness vanished from her eyes, replaced by a sort of speculative interest.

"Good morning," she said to both of us. The corners of her mouth twitched, and I realized that she was only barely managing to hide a smile. I sat my fork down beside my plate and took a deep breath.

"Mom, this is Bella. Bella, my mom."

"Good morning, Mrs. Masen," Bella said, standing. "I apologize if we woke you. It is a bit early for polite company on a weekend."

My mother narrowed her eyes slightly and made her way across the kitchen to the coffeepot. "Bella Swan, isn't it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She flipped the switch on the coffeepot and turned to study Bella for a moment. "You look like your father," she observed as she reached into the cabinet. A funny little smile flickered across Bella's face.

"I hate to impose, but could I use your bathroom?" Bella glanced down to me, and I nodded, wondering why she seemed so eager to leave me alone with my mother.

"Sure." Bella raised her eyebrows, and after a couple of seconds, I realized that she wasn't supposed to know where it was. "It's right at the top of the stairs. You can't miss it."

"Thanks."

My mother waited until Bella had disappeared up the staircase—not nearly as quietly as she had descended it moments before—then turned to me with her eyebrows raised.

"Bella Swan," was all she said as she leaned back against the kitchen counter and studied me over the rim of her first cup of coffee. I couldn't quite hide my smile.

"Yeah," I said.

"I thought you didn't talk to her much . . ." she hinted.

"I didn't," I answered, rising to carry my dishes toward the sink, "until a couple of weeks ago."

She hummed knowingly as she added sugar to her coffee. "Which was right before she started riding to school with you."

I should have been surprised that she knew, but somehow I wasn't. Still, I was curious. "How did you . . ."

"Forks is a very small town, Edward," she said as she took another sip of her coffee. "And Mrs. Russo, down the street, is a very nosey woman." We shared a smile at the thought of Mrs. Russo, who spent most of her day studying the neighborhood through her kitchen window, but after a moment I found myself sobering. All joking aside, I needed to make my mother understand that I was serious about Bella, that she wasn't just some girl I would be hanging out with for a couple of weeks.

"Mom, I . . . I really like her." My mother smiled to herself, somewhat satisfied, and turned her attention to the coffeepot. After a moment, her eyes narrowed, and she turned back to face me. It took her a couple of seconds, but I knew she understood when the smile slid off her face and her expression became thoughtful. "We're going over to her house today," I continued. "She wants me to meet her family."

I saw my mother nod, and though she didn't say anything, I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that I wasn't that much younger than she had been when she had first met my father. She was wondering just how much I liked Bella, worrying that I might be following down the same path she had taken. But Bella and I weren't my parents, which was probably the understatement of the century.

The sound of Bella's feet on the stairs reached our ears, and my mother raised her eyebrows. She gave me a pointed look and glanced back toward the staircase. Understanding her unspoken request, I rolled my eyes, but it was mostly just for show. "Okay, okay," I said, "but be nice."

I met Bella at the bottom of the stairs. "I'm going to go change," I said, glancing back over my shoulder toward the kitchen. "Mom wants to talk to you," I added in a whisper. Bella smiled and reached down to touch my hand, then continued around the corner, her smile still firmly in place.

I tried not to hurry as I searched through my closet for something to wear. I reminded myself that Bella was a ninety-four year old vampire. She could obviously take care of herself, but that didn't stop me from feeling like I was throwing her to the wolves. I settled for my newest pair of jeans and tossed aside a button-up shirt in favor of a t-shirt—I didn't want to look like I was trying too hard—then headed to the bathroom to rake a comb through my hair and brush my teeth.

"_Little House on the Prairie_," I heard my mother say as I made my way down the stairs several moments later.

"_Anne of Green Gables_," Bella answered.

"_Pride and Prejudice_."

"_Jane Eyre_." They both laughed, and I breathed a sigh of relief. They seemed to be getting along just fine.

"Your girlfriend has excellent taste in literature," my mother told me as I came around the corner. I paused as her words sunk in. _My girlfriend. _Of course Bella was my girlfriend, what else could I say she was? But I'd never heard the term used before in reference to her. It had a nice ring to it. Suddenly, I was grinning like a fool.

"Ready to go?" I asked Bella. She nodded.

"It was nice to meet you, Lizzie," Bella called as she turned toward the door.

"You, too, Bella. You should come by for dinner one evening, and we'll talk some more."

I was opening my mouth to say goodbye to my mother when I was struck by the urgent feeling that I was forgetting something, something that was very important. Stepping away from the counter, my mother wrapped her arms around me in a hug that had me completely baffled . . . until she spoke.

"In case you don't get back before I leave for work, have a safe trip, okay?"

I froze, glad that she was still hugging me and couldn't see the expression on my face. _A safe trip. Phoenix. _My mother didn't know. She hadn't been home when my father had called, and I hadn't told her. When she stepped back, there was a look in her eyes—happiness, I imagined, because for once I was getting the chance to spend some time with my father. For once he hadn't called and canceled. Or so she thought. Somehow, I couldn't find it in me to tell her the truth.

"Thanks," I said as I reached up for my car keys. "I will."

I kept my eyes on the concrete as Bella and I made our way down the sidewalk toward my car. "I think my mom likes you," I said, trying not to think about what had just happened. "If you mention _Wuthering Heights _next time, she'll be eating out of your hand."

I should have known that it wouldn't work. Bella cut right through my pretense.

"You didn't tell her about your father," she said, coming to a stop at the end of the walk and turning to face me.

"No." I lifted my gaze to meet her golden eyes. "I couldn't. She's been so excited about this trip that I didn't have the heart to." Bella nodded silently, studying my face for another moment before speaking.

"How about I drive today?" she suggested, and I nodded silently, following her across the street toward her truck. I made my way to the driver's side and opened the door for her. She started to climb in, but then she stopped and turned back to face me, a thoughtful frown on her lips. Something in her eyes made me ache to know what she was thinking.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I was just wondering something," she answered vaguely.

"What?"

And then she surprised me by rising up on her toes and laying her lips against mine.

I'd only had an instant to realize what Bella was about to do, less than a heartbeat to prepare myself for what was coming. I tried to stay still, but it was hard to think when Bella's lips were moving gently against mine, when I could feel her hands pressed against my chest. When the taste of her was clouding my senses. I was barely a second away from wrapping my arms around her when she stepped back from me and smiled.

"Definitely getting better at this," she said, and then she turned to climb into the driver's seat. She grinned back over her shoulder at me. "That ought to give Mrs. Russo something to talk about."

I stood there staring at her for a moment before I managed to close the door and make my way around to the passenger's side. I didn't even try to hide the goofy grin on my face. As soon as we had pulled out onto the street, Bella reached over with one hand to claim mine.

We drove through the main part of town in comfortable silence, crossing the bridge over the Calawah River and continuing north. I had a vague idea of where the Cullens lived, but my knowledge of their home ended at the beginning of their driveway, which was easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. I had almost missed it again when Bella turned off the highway and onto the unpaved drive that led off through the ferns. Twisting and turning at random, it snaked its way through trees so ancient and towering that I couldn't help but wonder how the road had been built without disturbing them.

After several miles the road forked, and Bella turned to the right without comment. Before I knew it, we had arrived at a two-story log cabin nestled perfectly into the woods. Ahead of us the drive continued on around the house, but Bella stopped beside the porch and climbed out.

I studied her home as I stepped out of the truck. It seemed to fit in perfectly, just a tiny niche carved out of the forest. It was as though it had always been here, as if the forest had grown up around it. In the distance, I could hear the sound of water running over rocks. The backyard must slope down to the Sol Duc River below.

"Wow," I said, at a loss for words.

"You like it?" she asked, taking my hand. I nodded.

"It's great."

Pulling me forward, Bella led me up the steps to the porch and in through the front door. In perfect compliment to the logs outside, the interior walls were stained a honey hue. We made our way through the front entry, and Bella gestured down a short hallway to the right. I noticed a painting on the wall—a herd of buffalo grazing peacefully in the foreground while the sun set brilliantly behind mountains in the distance.

"Charlie's bedroom and office are down that hallway," she said, and then she took me in the opposite direction, into a large open space with a grouping of sofas and chairs surrounding a large television. Beyond that, taking up the entire left wall of the house, was a sort of dining and kitchen area combined, stocked full of shiny appliances that my mother would have drooled over, appliances I was certain had never been used.

After another moment Bella led me through the seating area and into a larger room beyond . . . and I discovered that I had misjudged Bella's home entirely. What I had assumed to be the front porch of a log cabin was in reality the back porch of a log chalet.

The front wall was nothing but glass, rising up two stories toward the rafters. I stepped closer, taking in the awe-inspiring view of the river directly below and the forest beyond. It was like nothing I had ever seen.

"This is incredible," I said, finally managing to pull my eyes away. Bella smiled.

"Esme designed and built it for us . . . with Alice's input, of course." She rolled her eyes and sighed faintly. I wondered why.

Turning my attention to the ceiling, I studied the exposed rafters overhead. A chandelier that looked suspiciously like an old wagon wheel hung down, lighting the room below, and a stone fireplace stood near the rear wall. A stairway curled behind the fireplace, leading to the loft above. Taking my hand, Bella led me up the stairs.

Two-thirds of the loft was lined with books—hundreds of them, thousands of them, perhaps—and here and there, more bookshelves jutted out from the walls. A pair of pale-cushioned chairs sat facing each other at the very center of the room. As I studied the overflowing shelves around me, I couldn't help but wonder what type of supports hid behind the walls in order to carry the weight of so many books. Walking to the nearest shelf, I browsed the titles. _A Tale of Two Cities, Sense and Sensibility, Wuthering Heights. _"These are all yours?" I asked, turning back to Bella. She smiled.

"Most of them. Some are Charlie's." I shook my head in amazement and turned to glance back down over the railing at the room below. The view was just as incredible from this new angle. After a moment Bella took my hand and led me toward the third of the loft not covered in books.

"This is my bedroom."

I stepped through the open door, not quite sure what to expect. There was no bed, which seemed odd, even for someone who didn't sleep. In its place was an L-shaped sofa in a pale ecru color with a handmade quilt draped over the back. There were short shelves along each wall containing anything from CDs and journals to antique-looking knickknacks and old photographs. Two doors led off the front wall—a bathroom and a closet, I assumed. Judging by their placement, I imagined the door on the left to be the bath. No one could possibly have a closet that big.

On the nearest wall, I noticed a series of watercolors matted and framed to match. I stepped forward for a closer look. The first was of a pale yellow house with white twin porches. It was surrounded by trees, their leaves bursting with the colors of autumn. The second picture was of a brick house, its expansive front lawn covered in a blanket of snow. The third watercolor had no house, only a field of flowers with a patch of trees in the background. I stared at it for a moment, trying to understand why it seemed so familiar. Turning to ask Bella where it was, I nearly jumped in surprise when I discovered that she had crossed the room silently and was standing at my elbow.

"It's the meadow," she said, answering my unspoken question, "the meadow as it was when I first saw it. The trees have grown considerably since then. Some of them have fallen." I nodded to myself, turning my attention to the fourth picture.

Continuing the theme of the previous three, the last had been painted at the height of summer. It was of a beautiful white house with a porch that wrapped all the way around the first of its three stories. Half a dozen trees towered around it—evergreens, though the watercolor gave no clue as to what kind. It was beautiful, and if the architectural style was any indication, it had to have been at least a century old.

"Who did these?" I asked. Bella smiled gently.

"I did," she said offhandedly. "They're places I've been, houses we've lived in."

"They're nice," I said, but Bella just lifted one shoulder faintly. Turning, I studied the rest of the room, then glanced back out through her bedroom door.

"Where's your father?" I asked.

"At the main house with the others," she answered. I nodded and took a deep breath. There was no sense in putting it off any longer.

"Guess we should go meet them, huh?" Bella smiled and took my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze as we headed back down the stairs and out through the door. I was surprised when instead of walking back toward her truck, Bella led me into the forest beside the house.

"We're not driving?" I asked.

"No, it's not very far." I frowned, wondering about her definition of "not very far." She'd said the meadow was "not far," too. Bella laughed at the expression on my face.

"Even in human terms, it's quite close, I promise." I nodded, still dubious, and followed her down a well-worn trail through the woods.

Bella hadn't been exaggerating. The forest between the two houses was thick, but only deep enough to block them from each other's sight. Judging by Bella's usual definition of "not far," I imagined these two houses were more like two rooms of the same house to Bella and her family, and judging by the path worn between them, it was a trip that was made frequently.

As the trees thinned on the other side of the wood, I found myself stepping out into a sort of meadow that made up the lawn of the Cullen house. Tucked into its very center was the house that Bella had painted in her fourth picture, complete with six towering cedars.

"It had been abandoned and left sitting empty for years when Esme found it," Bella said. "She loves designing houses almost as much as she loves redesigning and restoring them. She did a wonderful job with this one."

"She did," I agreed as Bella led me across the lawn and up onto the front porch. Taking a calming breath, I allowed myself a moment to admire the intricate wooden trim between the columns, then followed Bella inside.

I had been expecting to find small, cramped rooms and that funny smell that old houses always seem to have, but this was different. I stepped into a large, open space, what must have been several rooms originally. Everything within sight, from the walls and the furniture to the massive staircase that took up one side of the room, was painted and decorated in various shades of white. As with Bella's house, one wall was solid glass, the view spreading out across the lawn and down to the river beyond. And there, in front of a magnificent grand piano just inside the door, stood Bella's father, aunt, and uncle.

Dr. Cullen stood on the left, closest to me. I had known him for years, of course, but he seemed different somehow, now that I knew. Something about the way he held himself had changed. Some of the façade he presented to the world was missing. Beside him stood Mrs. Cullen. I had never met her before, though my mother knew her from the hospital's annual Christmas parties and spoke very highly of her. She was small and slender with a heart-shaped face and caramel-colored hair. Something about her seemed softer, warmer than I had been expecting. She smiled at me encouragingly, and I returned her smile, wondering why I'd been so worried about meeting Bella's family. Beyond Esme, on the far right, stood Chief Swan. His body language was relaxed enough, and the expression on his face seemed welcoming, but there was something hiding just behind his eyes that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Bella led me toward her uncle.

"Carlisle, I believe you and Edward are already well-acquainted," Bella began.

"You might say that," Dr. Cullen said, nodding. I reached out to shake his hand, wondering for a moment why Bella had chosen to introduce me to her uncle before introducing me to her father.

"It's good to see you again, Dr. Cullen," I said.

"Carlisle," he responded, offering me a smile that I was certain was intended to put me at ease. "The dynamic has changed considerably since we spoke last. There's no need to stand on formality." I nodded and turned toward his wife, who had stepped forward to offer her hand.

"Esme, please," she said before I could address her. "It's very nice to meet you."

Her hand was cool, just as I had expected, but somehow the firmness of her skin was more apparent than it had been with her husband. It occurred to me that Esme spent less time around humans, and while Carlisle had grown accustomed to interacting with them on a daily basis, Esme was less practiced at pretending to be one of them.

"You, too. This house is beautiful, and Bella's house is amazing." She smiled warmly at my compliments.

"Thank you."

Moving down the line, I raised my hand tentatively toward Bella's father. "Chief Swan, it's good to see you again."

"Edward," was all he said. His handshake seemed welcoming enough, but as I pulled my hand away, I saw something flash in his eyes. It wasn't wariness, not quite. It felt more like he didn't entirely trust me. I was still pondering this when someone called out from the top of the stairs.

"Bella!" I turned my head to see Alice streaking down the staircase and across the room, coming to a stop directly in front of me. She smiled, her expression completely free of guard or caution.

"Hi, Edward," she said, reaching down to grab my hand and shake it. I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Vampire or no, nothing about this pint-sized pixie beaming up at me could possibly be threatening. Everything about her seemed completely friendly and welcoming, and every instinct said she was genuinely excited to see me. She tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes slightly.

"You do smell nice. I never noticed before."

I stared at her, not quite sure how to react, but it was hard to feel threatened when Alice was smiling and practically bouncing on her toes with excitement. In my peripheral vision, I could see that the rest of the room was tense. Alice's unexpected comment had overbalanced the already tenuous atmosphere. No one knew what to say.

And suddenly, the tension had vanished, replaced by a sense of ease and comfort. Remembering what Bella had said about Jasper's ability to control emotion, I turned my head toward the staircase. Jasper was standing at the bottom step. He made no move to come any closer.

"Hello, Edward," he said, nodding in greeting.

"Hey, Jasper," I responded, trying to shake the odd feeling that he was somehow afraid of me, which made absolutely no sense. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Bella had vanished from my side and was now standing beside her father. Their heads were bent together, and he was whispering something to her. I didn't want to stare, so I turned back to face the rest of Bella's family.

"It was nice meeting you," I said.

"We're glad you came," Esme asserted, a warm smile on her face. Before I could blink, Bella was back at my side and sliding her hand into mine. I turned to smile down at her, then glanced back toward her family. This time, however, my eyes moved past them and settled on the grand piano. Seeing where my gaze had come to rest, Bella led me toward it.

"Bella tells us that you play," Esme said, following along behind. I nodded, sliding my fingertips across the ebony finish.

"I do. This is beautiful," I told her, finally managing to pull my eyes away. "Whose is it?"

"Oh, we've all been known to play a bit, here and there. Rosalie is the most accomplished."

"It's beautiful," I said again, my fingers aching to touch the keys. Esme smiled.

"You can try it out, if you'd like."

"I couldn't." I shook my head. I was used to my battered old upright. I couldn't imagine playing something like this.

"Of course you can. We'd love to hear you."

I frowned to myself, knowing that no matter what I played, it would never sound worthy of this magnificent instrument, but refusing would seem so rude, and my fingers were aching to touch the keys . . .

"Okay." I took a seat on the piano bench and lifted the cover. I couldn't resist tapping a few of the keys, just to test it. The sound was pure and true, light years beyond anything my piano at home would ever produce.

"What will you play?" Bella asked, sliding onto the bench beside me. I turned to study her face for a moment before settling into the opening notes of Clair de Lune. I glanced over to find Esme smiling widely.

And it was lovely, truly lovely, like nothing I had ever played before. I was lost in the music again, but not so far lost that I couldn't see Bella at my side. I turned my head once or twice just to see the smile that touched her lips, the faraway look in her eyes. I lifted my hands from the keys when I had finished, forcing myself not to play something more.

"So beautiful," Bella said with a sigh. "I'm glad Esme thought of it."

I lowered my eyebrows, not quite sure what she meant. "Thought of what? The piano?" I asked. Bella nodded.

"She had it brought out of storage and tuned when I told her you played." I stared at her for a moment. Esme had done this for me? When I turned to look for her, Bella's aunt—and the rest of her family—had vanished. We were alone in the room.

"Where did everyone go?" I asked.

"They're giving us privacy," she answered.

I turned back to study the piano keys. "Esme seems to like me."

"She does," Bella agreed. "And Carlisle, as well."

I smiled. "Alice is . . . enthusiastic."

Bella laughed. "For Alice, time doesn't work quite the same way as it does for the rest of us. Her head is constantly filled with the future, so there's little to distinguish between what is and what may be. For her, the future is just as real as the present."

"So she feels like she's known me for a while?" I guessed. Bella nodded. "Which means she saw me coming, right?" I saw the curtain go down over Bella's face. I was getting a bit better at reading her expressions, and her expression now told me that there was no point in pressing the subject any further.

"What about Rosalie and Emmett?" I asked, deliberately changing the subject. I already knew that Rosalie wasn't exactly thrilled about me, and I could only assume that Emmett was siding with her. I had to admit that the thought made me nervous. Emmett was large and threatening, and I didn't like the idea of being around him if he didn't want me here.

Bella frowned. "Rosalie doesn't trust you yet. I've known her for seventy years, and she struggles very much with what we are. I'm sure it's very hard for her to trust you with the truth, difficult to have someone on the outside know." Her face brightened into a smile. "Emmett actually does like you. He's not here because he's upstairs trying to reason with Rose."

"Oh," I said, feeling somewhat relieved.

"Don't worry," Bella said, reaching out to touch my arm. "She'll come around."

I glanced down at her hand, marveling at how pale her skin seemed next to mine. "Jasper doesn't trust me either, does he?" I asked. Bella smiled faintly.

"It's himself that he doesn't trust. He's the newest to this way of life, and I can't deny that I've been a bit . . . nervous about him being around you. He doesn't always have the greatest confidence in himself, and if he's been picking up on my anxiety . . ." Glancing toward the staircase, I nodded.

"And your father?" I asked, leaving the worst for last. Bella shook her head.

"Charlie's just being a father. I don't think he's decided what to think of you yet." I turned back to face her. "But he is concerned about you."

"What do you mean?"

"You saw us talking, before?" I nodded.

"He was warning me of something that Alice saw, something that could pertain to your safety. There are some . . . visitors coming. Visitors like us, who are not like us. They know we're here, and they're curious."

"Like you but not like you?" I thought aloud. "Not . . . vegetarians."

"Alice says it's unlikely that they will go into town, but to be on the safe side, I don't want to leave you unguarded." I remembered my realization from the day before, the understanding that I had never really been at the top of the food chain, and I tried to ignore the sudden chill that ran down my spine.

"You'll be completely safe, Edward. I promise. We'll make sure of it." Her golden eyes were so determined as she looked up at me that I couldn't help but believe her. She was, after all, my guardian angel.

And suddenly a new idea was forming in my mind. I glanced down to the black and white keys in front of me. Only hours before I had wished that I had better words, stronger words to explain to Bella everything that I felt about her, but it wasn't words that I needed. Everything I needed was right in front of me. Smiling over at her, I placed my fingers on the keys and began to play the opening notes of her lullaby.

I could see that I had her attention immediately. Her eyebrows lowered, as though she were searching her memory for the name of the song, but it was no song that she had ever heard before.

"Do you like it?" I asked. Bella nodded.

"It's beautiful."

"I wrote it," I told her. Her eyes flew to my face. "I wrote it about you."

I saw her lips part softly, saw some strong emotion come into her eyes, but she didn't say anything more. She simply watched me play until the song had ended. When I turned back to her, there was a look in her eyes that I usually associated with tears. She seemed . . . awed.

"It's so beautiful," she whispered. "Thank you." Sighing, she laid her head against my shoulder. Wrapping one arm around her, I turned my face to breathe in the scent of her hair, and we sat together in silence as the memory of the melody settled around us.

. . . . .

_**Thank you to everyone still following this story! I love knowing that people are still reading and enjoying this, and I can't thank you enough for all of your questions and reviews! You guys are what keep this going. My apologies for this taking so long again - I'm hoping that real life will lighten up on me soon, and I can get back to updating more frequently.**_

_**So, what do you all think of the Swan residence? And Bella's bedroom and library? Like Edward and his music, I just couldn't imagine vampire Bella without seeing her carting her favorite books with her every time they move. :) (If any of you are wondering, by the way, the painting on the wall doesn't really exist, but it would be by Albert Bierstadt if it did.)  
**_

_**And for those of you still wondering, the lollipop goes to . . . CindyWindy, who figured out the cannon change in the last chapter. In the "real" story, there are only 5 members of the Denali coven - Tanya, Kate, Irina, Carmen, and Eleazar, but if you read Chapter 14 closely, you'll find that Bella tells Edward there are 6 . . .  
**_


	16. CARLISLE

16. CARLISLE

It was some time later when Bella lifted her head from my shoulder and turned her face to mine. There was something burning in her eyes, some emotion that I couldn't identify, and I found myself being pulled deeper and deeper into their golden depths. Something inside of me twisted in response.

We stayed that way for a long moment, trapped in each other's eyes until Bella folded her lips between her teeth and averted her gaze.

"Would you like to see more of the house?" she asked. When she turned her face back to mine, she seemed more . . . composed. The fire had faded to embers, but I could still see their glow.

"Sure," I answered, still searching for words to describe what I'd seen in her eyes. I turned to lower the cover back over the piano keys and slid off the bench.

"We can start with the kitchen, if you'd like," she said, gesturing toward an opening in the wall behind us. I nodded and followed her silently into the next room.

The kitchen was a large, open space with an abundance of cabinets and shiny countertops. As in Bella's house, it was stocked with an assortment of high-end appliances that made it look like the set of a professional cooking show. Though I doubted anyone in the house ventured into this room very often, there wasn't a speck of dust to be seen.

"It's nice, but it's . . . kind of unnecessary, isn't it?" I asked.

Bella frowned faintly. "Even in our own homes, we can't completely give up our cover stories. A hiker could wander off the trail and end up here. Someone might get lost and take a wrong turn off the highway. It's not something that happens often, but we have to be prepared for the possibility."

Nodding, I followed her toward the other end of the room, which opened out into a dining area. Beneath a low-hanging chandelier sat a huge oval table with enough chairs to seat Bella's entire family.

"Esme loves antiques," she said as she reached down to trace her fingertips along the mahogany finish. "This is one of her favorite pieces. We do use it sometimes . . . for family meetings and the like." The hint of a frown touched the corners of her lips, and she turned to lead me around the partition and back out into the living room. I followed her through a seating area and past an impressive flat-screen television, but as Bella led me toward the staircase, my eyes fell on the wall of glass and the view of the lawn and the river beyond. I drifted across the room for a closer look.

"Your aunt likes windows," I observed as Bella came to stand by my side.

"We spend so much time in hiding," she said, gazing out across the lawn, "but the problem with keeping the world from truly seeing you is that often you can't truly see the world." She turned her head to smile up at me. "It's nice to be able to look out without having to worry what people will see when they look in. We don't have to hide here."

I studied her face for a moment, realizing that I'd never really considered what it must feel like to have to pretend to be something that you weren't. "I guess that's what I was expecting," I admitted. "You know, shadowy rooms and dark curtains blocking the sun?" I paused and sent her a teasing grin. "Coffins and cobwebs . . . maybe a pile of bones in the corner."

"Bats in the attic?" Bella suggested, a playful smile touching her lips.

"Maybe a dungeon in the basement." The beautiful sound of her laughter drifted through the room.

Turning away from the window, we made our way up the wide, curving staircase to the second floor. The color scheme was different here. Instead of white, the walls and floorboards where a honey tone, almost a perfect match to the interior of Bella's house.

"This is Rosalie and Emmett's room," she said as we passed the first door. "The next door is Jasper's study, then Alice's bedroom." I nodded and paused to examine one of the paintings that hung along the wall.

"Your family's really into art."

Bella drifted back a few steps to stand beside me. "We appreciate beauty as much as anyone," she said. "When you live as long as we do, you realize how fleeting it can be." Her eyes grew darker, more distant, and after a few seconds she turned to lead me down the hallway toward the last door.

"Carlisle's office is next," she explained.

My gaze moved past Bella to the end of the hallway, and I froze mid-step. A large wooden cross hung on the far wall, just above eye level, its weathered surface a perfect contrast to the honey toned panel behind. It had to be some sort of an inside joke. I laughed.

"Does that keep the evil vampires out?"

Bella smiled faintly. "It's an old family heirloom."

"How old?" I asked, stepping forward for a closer look.

"Early sixteen-thirties, give or take a few years."

I nodded, impressed. "Whose is it?"

"Carlisle's. It hung on the wall above the pulpit in the vicarage where his father preached."

"Carlisle's father was a preacher?" I asked, turning my eyes away from the dark patina of the wood. Bella nodded faintly. "Kind of ironic, isn't it?"

"It is," she admitted with a smile. I glanced back toward the cross.

"So he keeps it to remember his father's church?" It was a nice thought, Carlisle bringing some memory of his old life with him as he moved from town to town, but as I turned back to face her, Bella frowned slightly, her eyes growing wary. I couldn't help but wonder what I was missing.

"He keeps it to remember his childhood . . . and his father." She paused, seeming to hesitate before finishing. "His father carved it."

But if the cross had been carved in the sixteen-thirties . . . I realized suddenly that I had never given any thought to how old Bella's uncle might be.

"Just how old is Carlisle?" I asked.

"Three hundred and sixty . . . something. We aren't exactly certain. Birth dates weren't recorded for the common people until much later, but he believes he was born some time in the early sixteen-forties."

I nodded. I was surprised by this new information, but mostly because Bella had given it so readily. Somehow, it was easier to accept that Carlisle was more than three and a half centuries old than it was to accept that Bella hadn't even had her one hundredth birthday yet. She studied me for a moment, her eyes becoming unreadable.

"Would you like to hear Carlisle's story?" she asked. I nodded, following as she turned back down the hallway toward his office. She paused just outside the door and reached up to knock softly.

"Come in," Carlisle's voice called. Bella opened the door and stepped aside so that I could enter.

The room reminded me immediately of Bella's library back at the Swan house. The walls were lined with books, the shelves stretching up toward the high ceiling overhead. Here and there, dark panels were visible between them, and tall windows faced out from one wall. Bella's uncle sat behind a large desk, smiling up at us as he placed a bookmark between the pages of a thick tome.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, rising from his leather chair.

"Edward would like to know more about how our family began. I thought you would be the best one to tell the story."

I saw Carlisle's gaze drift past my shoulder, and I turned to face the wall we had just entered through. The bookshelves were absent here, I realized, and the dark paneling was covered in paintings. There seemed to be no logic to the collection; small pieces hung beside larger ones, dull monochromes beside colorful landscapes. I found myself drawn to one on the far left, a small square painting that Carlisle seemed to have been focusing on. Stepping closer for a better look, I sensed him following behind me, though I could not hear his footsteps on the floor.

Nothing about this painting stood out against the others on the wall. It was one of the smaller pieces, its colors more muted than most of the rest. I studied the wide river that took up the foreground and the odd little structures on the bridge that spanned across it. Beyond the river lay a city of steeply slanted roofs, broken only occasionally by spires that stretched toward the sky on high, thin towers.

"London in the sixteen-fifties," Carlisle explained. "The London of my youth."

"Will you tell the story?" Bella asked.

"I would," Carlisle began, sounding regretful, "but I'm actually running a bit late. The hospital called this morning. Dr. Snow is taking a sick day."

Turning toward Bella, Carlisle laid his hand on her arm. It was a paternal gesture, one that spoke of years of familiarity and affection. "Why don't you tell it, Bella? You've heard it several times." Bella seemed to consider this for a moment before nodding. Carlisle dropped his hand and turned toward me.

"It is good to see you again, Edward, _outside_ of the hospital." Then, with a polite smile, he was gone.

Bella turned toward the painting, her eyes narrowing slightly, as though she were trying to decide where to begin.

"You already know that Carlisle's father was an Anglican vicar," she said after a moment. I nodded. "He was . . . somewhat of a hard man, very firm in his beliefs and eager to persecute those who did not walk the straight and narrow path that he followed. Carlisle was his only child. His wife had died giving birth to him, and the vicar never remarried. He tried to raise Carlisle to believe as he did, but Carlisle didn't see the world in the same way as his father. Though he had been raised to believe in right and wrong, he couldn't see the world as simply black and white. There were too many shades of gray between the two, and it wasn't in Carlisle's nature to cast stones." Bella considered my expression for another moment, then turned her eyes back to the painting.

"In those days, the world was a different place. People still believed in witches and demons and things that go bump in the night. The vicar often led hunts for those monsters, but real monsters are difficult—if not impossible—to catch, and the accused were never more than innocent bystanders who were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Typical witch hunts," I surmised. Bella nodded.

"As the vicar grew older, he placed Carlisle in charge of the raids. At first, Carlisle was unsuccessful. He was unwilling to accuse the innocent without firm evidence, but he was persistent, and by a stroke of ill luck he succeeded in finding a group of real monsters that lived hidden in the city sewers, emerging only during the night to hunt." She turned her face back to mine.

"One evening, Carlisle called the people of the parish together, and they came bearing torches and pitchforks. They lay in wait until the sun went down, until the monsters emerged from their hiding place." She frowned and lowered her eyebrows thoughtfully.

"He must have been very old, the first one to appear. Carlisle could hear him calling back to his companions in Latin. Young and eager, Carlisle charged, leading the mob against the monster, but the mob was no match for even one of them. He could have escaped them easily, but he must have been hungry because he stood his ground. He attacked Carlisle first, but the people were close behind, and he released Carlisle in order to defend himself against them. He killed two more and made off with a third, and the mob followed as he fled, leaving Carlisle alone and bleeding in the street." Bella paused to study my face before she continued.

"Carlisle was injured and in pain, but he knew what would happen. Anything infected by the monster would have to be destroyed, and that included himself, so he crawled away from the street and hid in a cellar, burying himself in a bin of rotting potatoes. He stayed there for three days, barely managing to stay silent and undiscovered, and when the three days were over, he realized with horror what he had become." Bella paused once more, and I could see that she was looking for my reaction, but I was too caught up in her story to be anything but fascinated.

"He rebelled against it, at first," she continued. "No one wants to be a monster, and he had been raised to believe that what he had become was nothing less than a demon. He tried to destroy himself, but to no avail. Throwing himself down from great heights left nothing but a pit in the street where he landed. Sword blades bent and broke when he tried to run himself through, and when he tried to drown, he discovered that he had no need for breath."

Seeing my frown, Bella paused as I processed the fact that vampires didn't need to breathe. After a moment, I nodded for her to continue.

"The instinct to . . . feed is very powerful, especially at the beginning, but Carlisle was so horrified by what he had become that he was somehow able to resist. When he realized that he could not destroy himself, he withdrew into the wilderness, hoping that he would starve."

Taking a step to the right, Bella paused to study another painting—this one of a forest in autumn. There was an empty meadow in the foreground, and a jagged peak rose behind the trees. I wondered if this was the English wilderness in which Carlisle had hidden himself all those years before. I glanced farther down the wall. Was this eclectic assortment of paintings actually a chronological timeline of Carlisle's life?

"He wandered alone for months," Bella continued, drawing my attention back to the story, "growing hungrier and weaker each day. He knew that if he returned to the city, his willpower would not hold, and he would commit the unthinkable. He was lonely and afraid, but he had nowhere else to go."

"One night, as he sat alone in the darkness, a herd of deer passed by. He was so weak with thirst that he attacked without thought, unable to fight the call of their blood, and as his strength returned, he realized that he had discovered the answer. If he could drink the blood of animals, instead of humans, then he could exist without living as a demon. Suddenly, he no longer had cause to hate himself. He had found a reason to hope."

For the first time since beginning her tale, Bella smiled. "In the months that followed, Carlisle began to see the world as a place of opportunity, and he realized that he had unlimited time in which to explore it. He had always been intelligent and eager to learn, so he spent the next few years making his way through the great universities of Europe, gathering knowledge on any number of subjects—science, art, music—searching for something to give his life meaning, until he finally found himself being drawn to medicine. He became fascinated with the idea that he could somehow make up for being what he was by saving human lives."

"He devoted his time to studying and to strengthening his self-control. Human blood would be an ever-present temptation in his chosen calling, and he knew he had to develop the strength to resist it, so he studied medicine in secret, pushing himself as close to humans as he dared, all the while living alone." Bella turned to make her way farther down the wall.

"Nearly half a century passed, and Carlisle grew weary of his solitude. He had met others of his kind, but none who shared his love of learning or his attachment to the human world."

She came to a stop in front of the largest, most elegantly framed painting in the collection. I had no clue who might have painted it, but the contrast of light and shadow suggested that the painter had been a true master of his art. The canvas was teeming with vibrant colors, a structured jumble of figures in swirling robes twisting their way between marble pillars and spilling down over balconies. It seemed like something out of Greek mythology. I wasn't quite sure how it fit in here.

"He was studying in Italy when he found them." Bella pointed toward one corner of the painting, and I leaned in closer to study four figures, surprised when I recognized Carlisle among them. "Aro, Marcus, and Caius, referred to simply as 'the Volturi.' They were refined, cultured, well-versed in art and science. Solimena was greatly inspired by them. He often painted them as gods." An ironic smile touched Bella's lips.

"At first, Carlisle was overjoyed to find them, but while their social refinement was impressive, they did not share his respect for human life. After years of their attempts to dissuade him from his chosen lifestyle, Carlisle decided to leave. He still craved the company of his own kind, but he would not waver in his resolve to aid humanity. He decided to try the New World in the hopes that he might find others who lived as he did."

"What about them?" I asked, glancing back to the figures in the painting.

"They're still there. Holed up in their tower in Volterra, just as they have been for millennia."

I blinked in surprise. "Millennia?" I asked. "Just how old are they?"

"A couple thousand years, at least." Bella frowned as she registered the surprise in my expression. Her face fell. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

"No, no, it's okay. I just wasn't expecting that." She studied me warily for another moment, unwilling to continue until I asked her to.

"He traveled across the Atlantic, continuing to study medicine and working to strengthen his self-control. He searched for years, crisscrossing the continent as he sought others of his kind." She smiled faintly. "Lewis and Clark are credited as being the first to cross North America and see the Pacific Ocean, but in truth, Carlisle beat them by decades."

Bella moved down the row of paintings once more, coming to stand before another landscape, but she didn't look at the painting this time. She focused her attention on me, instead.

"As time passed, the world changed. People grew away from old horror stories and traditions. Vampires became nothing more than legends, mythological monsters that existed only in stories. As Carlisle finally managed to perfect his self-control, he found that he could live among them, practicing medicine without anyone ever suspecting his secret. Yet he was still lonely. Two centuries of searching for companions of his kind had been fruitless, but as the years went by, he found another possibility coming to mind more and more frequently." She paused for a moment, some unidentifiable emotion darkening her eyes.

"We do not often create others of our kind, but when we do, it is usually because we are lonely. It was that possibility that Carlisle carried with him for decades. If he could not find a companion, could he create one? If presented with Carlisle's unique philosophy at the beginning of this life, would another vampire be more likely to embrace it? Still, the thought of taking someone's life the way his had been taken was loathe to him, so he spent years alone, trying to settle for what little comfort and companionship his chosen calling afforded him."

"He moved frequently, as we do now, to prevent anyone from noticing that he did not age. It was on one such move, as he was making his way across the open prairie, that he heard Charlie's cries for help. Carlisle's medical knowledge was impressive, but there are some things that medicine simply cannot heal. He knew there was no way he could save Charlie, but another possibility pushed its way into his mind. Charlie's life was over, so by changing him, Carlisle would be taking nothing away. He had never tried to change a human before, and his only firsthand knowledge of the procedure came from his own hazy memories, but he decided that he would try. If it worked, then he had given Charlie a second chance at life and perhaps gained a friend. If it didn't work, at least he would know that he had done all he could to save him."

"And it worked," I said. Bella nodded.

"It worked, and Carlisle was pleased to find that he and Charlie were like-minded in a number of ways. Charlie accepted Carlisle's way of life, and they've been together ever since."

Turning toward the door, Bella gave me one last smile and headed out into the hallway toward the staircase. I glanced back toward the paintings Bella had skipped over and forward to the ones farther down the wall than where she had ended. What stories did those missing chapters in Carlisle's life hold, I wondered? I followed her through the door and back out into the hall.

"You know the rest, of course. How Carlisle found Esme, and how Charlie found me." I followed her up another flight of stairs. "You must have a million questions."

She was right; my head was full of questions. Questions about the places Carlisle had been, about the things he had seen, but I didn't know how to put them all into words. I didn't even know where to begin.

"Can I have a couple of minutes to think about it?" I asked. Bella nodded.

Realizing that we had reached the third floor, I paused to survey my surroundings. It was, I discovered, nearly identical to the second, with the same honey paneling covering every inch of the hallway. A new set of paintings lined the walls.

"Carlisle and Esme's bedroom," Bella noted as she led me past the first door and continued down the hallway. "And this is the spare bedroom, so to speak, for when we have visitors." She gestured in through a doorway at the end of the hall.

"Visitors?" I asked ominously, wondering what sort of company the Cullens might keep. Bella laughed.

"Our friends from Denali visit from time to time," she explained as I leaned forward to peer inside.

The room was typical of what I was coming to expect from a vampire bedroom. It was more of a sitting room really, with a television surrounded by a cozy grouping of chairs. Two doors led off from the far end of the room, and the exterior wall was solid glass, the greater height allowing an even better view of the lawn below and the Sol Duc River beyond. This room must be directly above the living room two stories below. Was one wall of the house made entirely of glass?

I nodded, pulling my eyes away from the view and stepping back out into the hallway. As I followed Bella toward the staircase, we passed several other doors, but Bella didn't identify them, and I already had too many questions on my mind to add to the list. "So Carlisle didn't meet your friends from Denali until after he'd found Charlie?"

"No, we didn't meet Tanya and her family until after Emmett had joined us." Bella led me back down the stairs toward the front door. "It was just a few years before Alice and Jasper came along. We tried to live together for a time, but by then there were six of us and five of them. We got along well enough, but it was rather crowded, so we moved on."

Deep in thought, I nodded to myself as we made our way across the lawn toward the path that led back to Bella's house. "How old are Tanya and her family?" I asked.

"Tanya and her sisters were turned some time around 1000. They aren't sure of the exact year. Time was kept differently in the Slavic regions back then."

I should have been getting used to this by now, but her answer still surprised me. "Oh."

Bella eyed me carefully. "Does that bother you?"

I took a deep breath and shook my head. "Not in the way you're thinking. Chalk it up to popular fiction, but when you told me you were only ninety four, I was actually kind of surprised. Vampires are always centuries old in the books, but you're not even a hundred. When you told me Carlisle was three hundred and sixty, that sounded better, but suddenly everybody's at least a thousand years old. It's . . . . mind-boggling. A thousand years."

Bella frowned as we stepped into the trees, her eyes focusing on something in the distance. "Time feels different when you have so much of it at your disposal," she said.

I nodded, knowing that I could never fully understand what she meant. After a moment, I sent her a teasing smile.

"And you, less than a century under your belt. You're more like a baby vampire. You probably still have training fangs."

I should have known something was coming when Bella's eyes narrowed, when her lips curled into that mischievous grin, but suddenly the world was spinning in circles. Less than a second later I found myself pinned against a tree trunk by the marble curves of her body. Feeling the blood rushing to my head, I looked up . . . only to discover that up was really down. I was suspended upside down against the trunk of a tree, my head dangling some ten feet above the ground. Looking down—or rather up—at Bella, I saw the self-satisfied smirk on her face. I should have been scared, but I wasn't. I knew she would never hurt me, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"Okay, okay! Uncle! Uncle!"

The world spun again, and I found myself sitting upright on a tree branch. Bella was perched beside me, one of her arms stretched behind my back, helping me to balance on the limb. Her mischievous grin slid into a frown.

"Tell me the truth," she requested, her eyes growing wary. "How do you feel, knowing everything?"

"A lot better than you probably think I do," I answered honestly. I glanced away, trying to find the words to explain. "Once I accepted that everything I thought was true wasn't, it became a whole lot easier to accept things that shouldn't be true."

Turning back to study her face, I found my gaze drifting toward her lips. It was difficult to look away when Bella was so close beside me, when the memory of her body pressed against mine was so fresh, but I forced myself to. I didn't know how Bella's control was at the moment, and I wasn't about to test it if either one of us might end up falling out of a tree.

"What about you?" I asked instead. "You're so used to keeping everything a secret. Sometimes when I look at you, you seem surprised that I'm still here." I offered her a lopsided grin. "In case you haven't figured it out, I'm not going anywhere."

Bella's eyes met mine, and her lips curved into a smile. "I think I'm starting to believe that. I've been afraid of this, wondering at what point you would turn around and run. Now that you know pretty much everything, and you're still here, it's a relief." I smiled, trying to reinforce her understanding that I wasn't about to turn tail and run.

"More than a relief," she corrected. "It makes me happy."

Bella's eyes flickered toward my lips, and for just a heartbeat, I started to lean forward, but then she sighed and pulled away. Frowning faintly, she tilted her head to glance down through the foliage.

"What was all that about?" called a voice from below. There was a faint shuffling noise as Alice's head emerged from the greenery beside us. "Are you two trying to knock down the forest?"

"Just a little demonstration," Bella laughed. "Edward made the mistake of implying that my inferior age makes me a wimp."

Alice smiled and pulled herself up onto a nearby limb. "Careful, Edward, she has a bit of a temper."

"She's as stubborn as a mule, too," called a teasing voice from below. Glancing down toward the ground, I saw Jasper standing a dozen feet below.

"So I've heard," I chuckled.

"Did Charlie send you two as chaperones?" Bella asked, smiling.

"No, Alice says there's going to be a real storm tonight," Jasper called up. "Emmett wants to play ball. Are you game?"

I turned back toward Bella and lowered my eyebrows. I remembered her saying that Alice could predict the weather, but what was all this about a ball game?

"Why not bring Edward?" Alice suggested. She turned her head to glance down at Jasper, a reassuring smile on her face.

"Do you want to go?" Bella asked, her eyes widening slightly. "I know you like baseball."

"Where are you playing?"

"At a private field," Bella answered vaguely, her lips once more curving into a mischievous grin.

"In the rain?" I frowned.

"We have to wait for thunder to play. You'll see why," she answered.

"And we won't be in the rain," Alice chimed in. "The storm will be over the town, but not where we'll be." She smiled over at me. "Will you come?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

"Good," Jasper said warmly. The sincerity of his enthusiasm was undeniable. I remembered Bella's earlier assurances that Jasper didn't hold anything against me. It was nice to know that he was trying to make me feel welcome.

Alice flashed her smile once more and vanished into the greenery. Less than a second later, she was standing at Jasper's side.

"Let's go see if Carlisle and Charlie will come," she suggested as she reached for Jasper's hand.

"Like you don't know," he teased. I watched as they turned back toward the house and vanished from sight.

"So I'm playing baseball tonight with a family of vampires," I thought aloud. I remembered sitting in the stadium in Seattle less than a week before, wondering if vampires even liked baseball. It had seemed like such an absurd thought at the time. Apparently it wasn't. I laughed.

"What's the matter? Can't imagine vampires playing baseball?"

"Why not?" I shrugged, trying to keep a straight face. "It's the American pastime, right?"

. . . . .

**_I just wanted to say "thank you" for all of the comments and reviews! I love knowing that people are still following this and enjoying the subtle spin I've put on this story._**

**_As always, I tried to "freshen it up" a bit by adding/changing some details so that it wouldn't feel too much like a repeat of the original material. I hope you all enjoyed Bella pinning Edward up in the tree as much as I did. (Edward enjoyed it, too. Let's be honest with ourselves - Edward may be a gentleman, but he's still a teenaged boy, lol.)  
_**

**_We're coming up on the game in the next chapter, so things will be getting more exciting again. Rest assured that with our cast of characters switched around a bit in this alternate universe, the next several chapters will play out a bit differently than they do in cannon. We may even meet someone new . . . hint, hint . . . _****  
**


	17. A DIFFERENT GAME (THE GAME)

17. A DIFFERENT GAME  
_(THE GAME)_

"Did Carlisle ever go back to London?" I asked as Bella made the turn onto my street. "Did he ever see his father again?"

I had spent our entire drive back into Forks peppering Bella with questions about the story she had told me earlier in the day. She had answered them readily enough—something I was still getting used to after all of her evasions—but I couldn't help but wonder what details she might be leaving out.

"He went back several times, but he was always careful to keep his distance. He was still young, and he hadn't yet mastered his self-control. He knew how dangerous it would be for him to get too close." She pulled her eyes away from the rain-soaked pavement to meet mine. "He couldn't risk being recognized, either," she said, her voice growing softer. "He was presumed dead, but his body had never been found. He didn't know if his father suspected the truth, but in the end it seemed so much kinder to let his father wonder than to reveal himself and confirm his worst fears."

I nodded faintly, studying Bella's face as she pulled into her regular parking spot across the street from my house. She twisted the key in the ignition, her eyes lighting up as she turned toward me. The corners of her lips began to curve upward, but as her focus shifted to something just beyond my shoulder, the smile slid from her face. She stiffened, her jaw locking firmly into position, and the light faded from her eyes. Puzzled by the sudden change in her demeanor, I turned my head to see what had upset her.

A familiar black car sat in the driveway in front of my house. Billy and Jacob Black stood under the narrow overhang of my front porch, trying to stay dry.

"Your friends from the reservation," Bella said. The tone of her voice was strange, the inflection off. I turned back to study her face, but I still couldn't tell whether she was making an observation or asking me a question. I decided it was safer to assume the latter.

"Yeah, that's Billy Black and his son, Jacob. They must have seen my car and assumed I was home." I glanced back toward my house again. Jacob hadn't seen us yet; he was looking down toward the ground at his feet, but Billy had. His black eyes were fixed on us, returning Bella's glare with an intensity of his own. Suddenly, I remembered the treaty . . . and the fact that Jacob had violated it. I turned back to Bella.

"You aren't going to . . ." I began, not certain how to finish.

Bella blinked and pulled her attention away from my house. Her eyes softened as they met mine, her eyebrows lowering faintly for a moment as she studied my face. She frowned.

"We have no plans for retribution, if that's what you mean. I gave you my word. They may have violated the treaty, but the young one didn't know what he was doing. In the end, there was no harm done." She paused, her body shifting into a more relaxed position. "I don't know how much more time we could have spent together without you learning the truth, anyway. And it is easier now with you knowing." She glanced back out through the rain toward my house, but her eyes were less focused, her gaze no longer so intense.

"We never had any intentions for the Quileute people. We made no promises in the treaty that we wouldn't have made without it, but the situation has changed. The only threat they bear to us now is that they know the truth . . . but they also know better than to reveal it."

_The only threat they bear to us now . . . _The implication, of course, was that they had been a greater threat at some point in the past, and I was opening my mouth to ask her what she meant when she spoke.

"You should go meet them. I'm sure they won't appreciate waiting in the rain."

I nodded and glanced back toward my house. Jacob had seen us. There were two sets of eyes watching us now. "We're still on for the game tonight, right?"

Bella smiled. "Of course."

I might have kissed her then, but I didn't know how her self-control was holding up, and I was all too aware of Billy's dark eyes staring out at us through the rain. I settled for reaching over to lace my fingers through hers and lifted the back of her porcelain hand to my lips.

"I'll see you tonight," I said, releasing her fingers and reaching for the door latch.

"Tonight," she agreed. Her lips curved into a beautiful smile, and her golden eyes followed me as I climbed out into the rain. I glanced back at her as I hurried across the street. Her gaze was fixed on Billy once more, her jaw set into a firm line. I turned back toward the house. A moment later I heard the squeal of her tires as she pulled away from the curb and accelerated down the street.

"Hey, guys," I said as I came up the walk, "what are you doing here?"

"Returning Lizzie's containers from the other night," Billy answered. Jacob raised the plastic bag in his hand. They made an odd pair—Billy glaring at me with those piercing black eyes and Jacob, his typical, cheerful self, smiling away without a clue of what was going on.

"Sorry I wasn't home. I hope you weren't waiting long." I unlocked the front door and stepped aside so that they could enter.

"No, we just got here." Jacob handed me the plastic bag. I noticed Billy glancing toward his son with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Where's Josie?" I asked.

"We left her back in La Push," Jacob answered as they followed me into the kitchen. "They had a sandlot game going, so we just let her play." I turned my head toward the window.

"They may not be playing anymore if the rez is getting any of this."

Jacob grinned. "She'll be ticked if she gets home and finds out we left her."

I nodded faintly, noting the way that Billy was watching me. As our eyes met, he glanced away. After a moment, he reached up to pat at his jacket pockets half-heartedly.

"I found a picture of the four of you kids the other day when I was going through some old boxes," he said. "I meant to bring it along for your mother, but I must have left it in the car." He turned to Jacob. "Can you go out and see if you can find it? Check the back, too, just in case."

Jacob shrugged and rolled his eyes before heading back out into the rain. Turning away from Billy, I reached up to open a cabinet door and started stacking the plastic containers inside.

"How have you been?" Billy asked. "We didn't have much of a chance to talk the other night."

I frowned. It hadn't been hard to guess Billy's reasons for getting Jacob out of the kitchen. I wondered how long he'd make small talk before getting around to the point.

"I've been great, Billy. I've been great." Behind me, Billy hesitated as he tried to decide what to say next.

"That was Carlisle Cullen's . . . niece, wasn't it?"

We both knew the answer to that question, but I humored him. Placing the last of the containers in the cabinet, I turned to face him and nodded.

"Yeah. Her dad's the new chief of police." Something else that we both knew. Billy nodded faintly, then paused to gather his thoughts.

"I've known you for a long time, Edward. I've watched you grow up. When you were younger, you spent so much time at my house that sometimes I felt like you were one of my own, so I hope you'll listen to what I'm about to say."

But I already knew what he was about to say.

"Spending time with Bella Swan is not a good idea. Spending time with any of the Cullens is not a good idea."

"And why is that?" I asked.

"There are things you don't know about the Cullens." My instincts were telling me that Billy suspected I knew more than either of us was letting on. I couldn't shake the feeling I'd had a few nights before, the feeling that he knew every word Jacob and Josie had said to me at First Beach and was trying to figure out how much of it I believed.

"How well do _you _know them, Billy? From the moment they moved here, no one from La Push has wanted anything to do with them. No one will even come to the hospital any more since Dr. Cullen started working there."

"We have our reasons," Billy answered vaguely.

I tried to keep my face blank as I considered his words. Billy's intentions were good. He was genuinely concerned for my safety, but his hands were tied. He was bound by the treaty, so he couldn't warn me specifically what the Cullens were. He could only hope that I had listened to Jacob and Josie and that I believed their wild tale. Was it better to let Billy worry because he didn't know whether or not I believed the truth or to let him worry because he knew I knew the truth . . . and chose to be with Bella anyway? I deliberated for another moment and decided the latter. If he didn't think I believed, then he would just keep trying to warn me. If he knew that I already knew the truth, what more could he do?

"Don't worry, Billy. I know what I'm getting into." His eyes narrowed.

"Do you?" he asked.

I nodded once. "I do." I noted that there was no surprise in his expression. I was right. He had suspected as much.

"Then I can't help but wonder why you're getting into it."

"Because I know them, Billy. Better than you do."

He frowned. "Then maybe I should rephrase. Please don't do this, Edward. If not for your own sake, for your mother's."

So now he was pulling my mother into the situation, trying to guilt me into listening to him? My temper flared, but I pushed it down, reminding myself that Billy was desperate for me to listen and searching for any leverage that he could find to make me change my mind.

"It's funny that you should mention Mom because you've already tried to warn her about the Cullens, and she didn't listen. Because she knows Dr. Cullen. She's worked with him for more than two years. And I know Dr. Cullen. He's operated on my ankle . . . twice. I understand your concern, Billy, and I thank you for it, but you don't have to worry."

His dark eyes searched my face, trying to find some final angle to push from. "I could always talk to your mother again."

"You could," I conceded, "but I doubt it would do any more good than it did the last time. And we both know that there's only so much you can say." I glanced toward the door, suddenly remembering that Jacob could be back at any moment. Billy knew what had happened at First Beach. There was no point in denying it. "The treaty has already been violated once, Billy, and the Cullens have chosen to look the other way. Please, don't do anything you shouldn't."

I saw his eyes widen at my words, but I knew he wasn't surprised that I knew. He just hadn't been expecting me to speak of it. He was still trying to decide what to say when the front door opened, and Jacob came around the corner into the room. His shirt was wet, and water dripped out of his hair.

"There's no picture anywhere in that car," he grumbled to his father. He didn't sound too happy. Considering his appearance, I couldn't really blame him.

"Hmm," Billy responded. "I guess I must have left it at home." He turned his wheelchair toward the door and glanced back over his shoulder at me. "Well, Edward, I guess we should be going. Josie will be wondering where we went."

I saw Jacob frown out through the window at the rain. He'd just come in out of it, and he wasn't relishing the idea of going right back outside again.

"I'll tell Mom you said 'hi.' Thanks for bringing her stuff back."

Billy's eyes met mine. I had wondered if I would see anger there or defeat, but what I saw instead was determination. Billy hadn't given up yet, not by a long shot.

"Take care," he said.

"Thanks," I responded. I followed them toward the door, watching as they made their way back out through the rain. I waited as Jacob helped his father into the car and slid behind the wheel. I didn't leave the window until they had disappeared down the street.

I spent the next few hours watching a game on the sports channel and wondering if Bella would reappear now that Billy and Jacob were gone, but she never did. I was used to being home alone; with my mother's varying shifts at the hospital, it was nothing new to me, but somehow the house had never seemed so empty as it did now, without Bella to fill it. As I sat at the table eating leftovers for dinner, I couldn't stop my eyes from settling on the empty chair across from mine. When the doorbell rang some time later, it was all I could do to keep from running to greet her.

Bella stood on my doorstep, looking absolutely adorable in an oversized raincoat. The rain was pouring down outside, but she didn't look the slightest bit damp.

"Hey." I knew I was probably grinning like a fool, but I just didn't care.

"Hi." Her eyes took in my expression, and a brilliant smile spread out across her lips in answer. "Ready to go?"

I grabbed my raincoat and stepped out into the drizzle, raising my eyebrows at the sight of the vehicle parked behind my car. I had clear memories of Emmett's Jeep; most of the guys at Forks High did. He had driven it to school once or twice, causing a riot in the school parking lot. It was huge, the tires alone coming up past the door handles on my car. It looked like it could eat my Volvo for lunch. I started toward the driver's side to open Bella's door for her.

"The field isn't exactly on a paved road," she explained as I climbed into the passenger's seat a moment later. She watched as I tried to figure out the complicated system of buckles in the off-roading harness, nodding to herself when I had finished. Starting the engine, she put the Jeep in reverse and backed out of my driveway.

As we drove through the rain on the way out of town, I began to question Alice's prediction that it would be dry at the field. I didn't know how far we were going, but the farther we went, the heavier the downpour grew. I couldn't help but think that we were heading into the rain, instead of out of it. After several miles, Bella turned off the pavement and onto what seemed like more of a mountain trail than an actual road. I was thankful for the off-roading harness then. It was probably the only thing that was keeping me from bouncing out of a window.

After some time, Bella came to a point where we could clearly go no further. The way was blocked by trees on three sides. Following her lead, I unhooked myself from the harness and stepped out of the Jeep into a light drizzle. I looked up at the sky to find patches of blue peeking out from between the clouds. After a moment of deliberation, I decided to have faith in Alice's predictions and left my raincoat on the seat.

I smiled at Bella as she came around the front of the Jeep toward me. Glancing at the trees around us, I searched for some indication of a clearing large enough for a baseball diamond, but all I could see were the continuing shadows of the forest. Not that I had been expecting it to be that easy, of course. I had already learned that Bella's favorite places could only be reached on foot.

"So," she said after a moment, "do you want to take the long way or the quicker route?"

I turned back to face her. "How far is it?" I asked, curious about just how private the Cullens' private field really was.

"A couple of miles," she answered simply. I frowned. Why would she even suggest walking to the field when it was so far away?

"But if we walk in, we'll miss the whole game," I pointed out.

Bella smiled faintly. "We should have time to watch an inning or two."

I puzzled over her unreadable expression, trying to understand why she didn't seem to be in any hurry to get there. Her conversation with Jasper and Alice had led me to believe that these games were a well-loved family tradition. And then I understood. Bella was keeping her promise from the day before.

"You're offering to let me walk in on my own, instead of carrying me in."

Bella nodded once. "You seemed a bit . . . uncertain about it yesterday," she said softly.

"No," I explained, "I liked it. It just felt . . . weird."

"Weird?" Bella repeated, her eyebrows lowering slightly.

"Well, I hadn't decided how I felt about it. Most guys don't get carried around the woods by their girlfriends," I joked. When Bella only blinked at me, I shook my head and took a step closer to her. "Then I realized that you aren't exactly like most girls, so it wouldn't be very fair of me to expect you to act like most girls do." I reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

"What I'm trying to say is that I don't mind if you want to carry me around in the woods, Bella, but I'm still going to open doors for you and help you carry your books to class." A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

"So chivalry isn't dead?" she asked, but there was something in her eyes, something that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"No, not even when your girlfriend is stronger than you are," I teased, but Bella's smile faded, and she pulled her eyes away from mine.

"You're right, you know," she said, her voice growing softer. "Most boys don't have to deal with any of this."

"With any of what?" I asked, confused by the strange turn in our conversation.

"With having a girlfriend who's a monster," she whispered.

I frowned, shaking my head as I tried to piece together what she was saying.

"It's true," she said softly, moving her eyes back to my face. "I am a monster, an aberration to nature itself. I shouldn't exist. I should have died in 1928, but instead, I live on by draining life from the living. I have no right to someone like you, no right to love you, but I can't seem to stop myself." She lowered her eyelids, turning her head to gaze down at the ground.

I stared at her, stunned, but there was no denying the self-loathing in her tone, the agony in her expression. How could she think of herself this way? I had known that she hated being what she was, but I could never have dreamed that it went this deep. I reached up to place a finger beneath her chin. I knew by now that I couldn't move her if she didn't want to be moved, so I was relieved when she let me tilt her face back toward mine.

"You're not a monster, Bella. You're a miracle." I waited until her eyes had settled on mine, then voiced the half-panicked thought her words had brought to mind. "What would have happened if that night had been different?" I asked. "If your father hadn't found you in that stream? You would have died, and I never would have met you. We never would have found each other, so how can what you are be wrong?"

Something touched her eyes, something that I hoped was understanding. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to kiss her, but I knew better than to test Bella's self-control, so I leaned forward to lay my lips against her forehead instead.

"You're a wonderful person, Bella," I whispered, trying not to lose myself in her scent, in the cool smoothness of her porcelain skin. I traced my lips across her temple. "I know you don't think it's true, but it is." It was hard to think, standing this close to her, but I had to try to make her understand why she was wrong. I brushed my lips down the side of her face. "You're strong, and you're brave enough to fight even when you think the odds are against you, even when you know it won't be easy." I moved down to the line of her jaw. "You love your family, and you'd do almost anything for them." Kissing the bridge of her nose, I moved toward her cheek. "And you have the most beautiful—" But I didn't get to finish because Bella moved her face to the side, cutting off my words with her lips.

I tensed, waiting for her to pull away, but she didn't, and after a moment, I felt her lips moving under mine. Reaching up, I cupped the side of her face in my palm, rubbing the pad of my thumb against the arch of her cheek.

It was torture, exquisite torture kissing Bella in the middle of the forest. I wanted to wrap my arms around her, to pull her so close against me that she could never get away. It was all I could do to clench my left hand into a fist and anchor it to my side. After another moment, Bella pulled her lips away and rested her forehead against mine. Opening my eyes, I found that hers were still closed.

"Your scent was killing me, you know," she whispered. "The rain smelled wonderful on you, sort of like when you get out of the shower, only more . . . natural." She smiled sadly, then ducked her head to snuggle against my chest. Several moments passed by before she pulled away and smiled sadly.

"We should probably get going," she said with a sigh. She seemed reluctant to end the moment. I understood completely.

"So how about that faster way to get there?" I asked. The ghost of a smile touched Bella's lips.

"Are you sure?" she asked, still sounding slightly suspicious. I nodded. Turning her back toward me, she stuck her hands out at her sides. I lifted my knees into her open palms, feeling far more comfortable than I had the day before, and leaned over to kiss the shell of her ear. And then we were off.

I could get used to this, I decided as we raced through the trees. The speed was thrilling, and the forest seemed so alive when we were flying through it at . . . I wondered how fast we were going, then decided I probably didn't want to know. And then the ride was over, and Bella was lowering me gently onto an old log. Her hand reached out for mine.

"The field is just on the other side of those trees," she explained. I glanced in the direction she indicated, nodding when I realized that there seemed to be a lot of light seeping out from between the tree trunks. I stood and led her through the wet ferns, around the trunk of a giant hemlock tree, and out into the open.

The field was massive, without a single bush or sapling to break its bare expanse. It was not at all something I might have expected to find in the middle of a forest, and I couldn't help but wonder how it had been formed.

Glancing out into the field from under the cover of the trees, I could see the rest of Bella's family engrossed in their various pursuits as they waited for us to arrive. Chief Swan, I noted, had traded in his customary Stetson for a more traditional baseball cap. He and Carlisle were marking bases near the center of the field . . . bases that seemed ridiculously far apart. Alice and Jasper were standing about a quarter of a mile away from each other, tossing a ball back and forth between them. I raised my eyebrows. Vampire baseball, it seemed, was a different game altogether. Closer in, the rest of Bella's family sat on a large rock, waiting with various degrees of patience for the game to begin. As we came out from under the shelter of the trees, Esme rose and started toward us. Rosalie stood and headed out toward Bella's father and Carlisle. Emmett paused to watch her walk away, then turned and followed Esme in our direction.

"Hey! You made it!" he called as soon as they were close enough for us to hear. "What took you two so long?"

Beside me, a mischievous smile spread out across Bella's face.

"Your Jeep. It's slow." Emmett just laughed as he came up even with us.

"More likely you were distracted," he muttered to Bella, wiggling his eyebrows. Bella just glared. Esme shook her head and offered me a warm smile.

"Ignore him," she told me. "Emmett started teasing Bella the moment he met her, and he hasn't stopped since."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alice running toward us across the field. Coming to a sudden stop at our feet, she flashed me a brilliant smile and announced, "It's time!"

As if on cue, a bright flash of lightening streaked down out of the sky to the west, followed several seconds later by the deep rumbling of thunder.

"You can play if you want," Emmett offered, but I could see from his jovial expression that he wasn't really expecting me to take him up on it. They were the first words he had ever spoken to me directly, and I couldn't detect anything but open friendliness in his tone. I glanced back out toward the field, to the places where Carlisle and Chief Swan had marked the bases, and laughed.

"I think I'll sit this one out," I told him. "Maybe next time."

"Suit yourself." Shrugging offhandedly, he grinned again and followed Alice back out onto the field. Bella turned toward me and smiled.

"We've never played with an audience before," she said. "You can be our cheering section."

"Okay," I agreed, returning her smile. Bella took two steps backward, her eyes lingering on mine for a moment before she turned and headed out onto the field.

"Come on," Esme said, "let's find you the best view."

"You aren't playing?" I asked as I followed her toward home plate.

"I only play when we're up to bat. Charlie and I take turns being the referee. It takes two of us to keep the rest of them honest."

"We don't cheat!" Emmett called. Esme just shook her head.

"He's the worst one for it," she said with a fond smile. I studied her face for a moment, the kindness and acceptance in her eyes.

"Thank you," I said, "for inviting me, for welcoming me into this. I know how . . . surreal this all feels to me. It must be strange for you, too, letting an outsider in."

Esme smiled, her eyes softening. "It is a bit odd, isn't it?" she said, sounding thoughtful, "but I've watched Bella ever since she came to us. She's seemed content at times, and sad at others, but I've never seen her so blissfully happy, so alive as she's been with you." She smiled again, but there was something in her eyes, some worry that she chose not to voice. "It makes me happy to see her happy. I know she considers Charlie to be her father, but there was a time when it was just Carlisle, Charlie, Bella, and I, and in a lot of ways, she'll always be my firstborn child." She paused for a moment, something flickering in her eyes. "My firstborn child in this life, at least."

"You had kids?" I asked. Most of the questions I had asked Bella about her family's history had centered around Carlisle. I knew that Esme was physically older than Alice and Rosalie, but it had never occurred to me that she might have had a family before this one.

"Only one," she said. Her smile was bittersweet, and her eyes seemed . . . clouded, as though she were trying to look back at something that had faded with time. "Poor little baby. He died not long after he was born."

"I'm sorry," I said, hoping they were the right words to say. Esme had been a vampire for over eighty years. I wondered how much time had passed between the loss of her child and the beginning of this new life.

"Thank you," she said, and there was a sort of gratefulness in her eyes. There was something else there, too, some secret that she chose not to voice. I wondered about it, but it wasn't my place to ask.

We came to a stop near home plate. It seemed as though teams had already been decided. Carlisle was far out in left field, while Bella stood between first and second base. Alice stood on what I assumed to be the pitcher's mound, the ball clutched confidently in her hand. No one wore a glove. Closer in, I could see Emmett waiting to begin the game. He held an aluminum bat in his hands, and he swung it so quickly through the air that it disappeared from view on each swing.

"All right," Esme called out from her place beside me. "Batter up."

I glanced toward the center of the field, to where Alice stood motionless, the ball cupped in both hands. I wondered how long she would wait to pitch, but then suddenly the ball was gone, and there was a loud cracking noise. The ball had reappeared in Jasper's hand, where he was crouched behind home plate.

"Wow," I said, impressed by the speed of Alice's pitch. I hadn't even seen her move.

"Strike one," Esme said in a calm voice.

I watched Jasper throw the ball back to the pitcher's mound. I saw him make the throw, but I never saw the ball. It simply appeared in Alice's hand, as if by magic.

Emmett managed a hit on Alice's second pitch. It all happened so fast that I didn't see the ball . . . or the swing, but the crack of the impact was thunderous, so loud that it echoed, and I immediately understood the need for a storm. I looked around for the ball, finally seeing it soaring out into the forest. Carlisle disappeared in pursuit.

It was hard for me to keep up. Emmett was a blur as he rounded the bases, Bella shadowing him as he went. I was already certain that Emmett would score the first run when Carlisle appeared at the edge of the forest. With another invisible throw, he winged the ball toward where Bella followed Emmett . . . and they went down in a heap at home plate. The crash of their impact was deafening, and I experienced a moment of panic until Bella popped up from the ground unharmed. "Safe!" Esme called out from her place beside me.

I shook my head, knowing that Esme's eyes had been able to discern what mine hadn't, but it was still impossible to believe that anyone could have caught the details of what had just occurred. I could hear Emmett taunting Bella. Esme shook her head.

Jasper came up to bat next, hitting a ground ball toward Bella, who raced him to first base. "Out!" Esme called. Bella turned toward us and waved. She was too far out for me to see it, but somehow I knew there was a smile on her face.

The inning continued with a base hit from Chief Swan before Carlisle tagged Rosalie out at second. Emmett attempted another home run but failed to beat Bella to the base. As the teams switched positions, Bella ran to my side.

"What do you think?" she asked. Her lips were folded together, making me think she was anxious about my opinion, but the light in her eyes told me she was enjoying herself.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to watch boring old baseball again," I told her with a grin.

"Really?" she asked, a smile breaking out across her face. I nodded.

"Really." Her smile brightened, and she turned toward home plate as her father took Esme's place at my side. I gave him a friendly nod, but he didn't respond.

Bella hit the ball low, keeping it away from Rosalie, who was waiting in the outfield, and beating Emmett to second base. When Chief Swan declared that she was safe, Bella responded to Emmett's taunts by sticking out her tongue. I couldn't help but laugh. Carlisle followed up by knocking the ball so far out of the field that both he and Bella made it home, leaving the score tied.

I watched as the game progressed, laughing as they taunted and teased each other when the lead shifted back and forth. In the distance, the thunder rumbled, but not a drop of rain fell on the field.

They were in the second half of the sixth inning when Alice froze. She didn't even seem to notice as Jasper's pitch sailed past her. She looked toward Jasper and shook her head . . . and suddenly everyone was flying across the field toward us. I didn't know what was happening, but some tiny voice in the back of my mind whispered that something was very, very wrong. The muscles in my stomach clenched.

"I didn't see," Alice murmured as they gathered around us. "I couldn't tell."

"What is it, Alice?" Carlisle asked, his voice calm and authoritative.

"They were traveling much quicker than I thought. I can see I had the perspective wrong before," she whispered.

"What changed?" Jasper asked, leaning over her.

"They heard us playing," she answered, sounding guilty, "and it changed their path."

Eight pairs of eyes turned toward my face and then quickly looked away. Suddenly I found myself thinking of what Bella had said that morning. _Visitors like us . . . who are not like us . . . _And they were coming here, now. I froze, my heart pounding in my chest.

"How much time do we have?" Chief Swan asked.

"I don't know. Less than five minutes, I think," came Alice's answer.

"That's not enough time," Bella said, her voice sounding strained.

"How many?" Emmett asked.

"Three," Alice answered curtly.

"Three!" he scoffed. "Let them come."

I found myself staring at Carlisle, as we all were, waiting for his decision. Inside I was reeling.

"Let's just continue the game," Carlisle decided. He sounded calm and collected, whereas my fear only continued to grow. "Alice said they were simply curious."

Without a word, Chief Swan stepped in front of me, and the players returned to their positions, but they stayed close to the center of the field now, ignoring the outfield, and not even moving out so far as the bases. Alice gave up her position at bat and settled near Bella's father. She seemed reluctant to move too far from my side. Bella hurried over to a large boulder to retrieve the raincoat she had removed before the game.

"Put this on," she told me, and I shrugged into it.

"That won't help," I heard Alice whisper. "You can't mask his scent with yours that way."

"I know," was all Bella said as she came to stand on my other side.

The game continued, but no one seemed to care anymore. Jasper had switched teams to make up for Alice and Bella's absence, but no one dared to hit harder than a bunt, and no one ran as fast as they had before. No one was trying to tag anyone out, either. Their eyes were focused on the forest, sweeping the trees for signs of our visitors.

Hit the ball, take a base, return the ball to the pitcher. That was how the game progressed.

As I glanced out toward the field, I noticed Rosalie's eyes coming to rest on me. She hadn't said a word since Alice's vision, and I had no way of knowing what she was thinking, but I couldn't help but realize how different this situation would be if I hadn't been here. If I were sitting at home in my living room, these visitors wouldn't matter, and Rosalie knew that. She was probably thinking that I was a complication for them, possibly even a danger to them if they had to protect me. I looked away.

"I'm so sorry, Edward," Bella muttered, an odd hitch in her voice. She reached down to squeeze my hand briefly before releasing it. I couldn't miss the fear that was shining in her eyes. "I didn't think something like this would happen. I'm so sorry."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alice straighten and turn toward the forest. Chief Swan pivoted slightly in place, angling himself more effectively between me and whatever was coming, and Bella followed suit. Out in the field, I saw the others do the same, abandoning their game to turn and face the treeline, and I waited as they listened to the sounds of someone moving through the forest too quietly for me to hear.

. . . . .

_**I'm still here! I'm still writing! I apologize for leaving you all hanging for so long, but you know how real life can be. (Willa blows a raspberry.)**_

_**Thanks to everyone still following this story, and a double thanks to everyone who reviews!  
**_

_**To my reviewers - I had mentioned a couple of months ago that I would like to do something as a "thank you" for those of you who take the time to leave me a review. I'm thinking of maybe giving you a "sneak peek" of the next chapter, just a couple of paragraphs before everyone else gets to see it . . . or perhaps some "outtakes" . . . Edward always has some interesting lines that get cut along the way. (Or I could bake you cookies, but I'm not that good of a cook, so I don't recommend that one.) I'm also open to other ideas. What kind of a "thank you" would you like? **__**You guys are awesome, and I want you to know how much I appreciate you!**_  



	18. HUNTED (THE HUNT)

18. HUNTED  
_(THE HUNT)_

A man stepped out of the shadows at the edge of the forest. Almost immediately he was joined by two more figures—a man and a woman—who emerged from the underbrush some thirty feet away on either side. Without a moment's hesitation, the second man stepped forward to take the lead, his two companions orienting themselves around him in a way that suggested he was their leader. I couldn't begin to explain why, but something about the move seemed . . . off.

Their footsteps were steady as they made their way across the field toward us, but something about their body language seemed cautious and uncertain, like a trio of lions approaching another, larger pride on the savannah. They wore jeans and button-down shirts, the sort of gear hikers usually preferred, but as they came closer, I could see signs of wear in the fabric—a faded seam here, a small tear there. A missing button or two. The hems of their jeans were fraying over their bare feet. I took a small step to the left, trying to stay out of sight behind Bella's father.

The man in the lead was the tallest of the three, his skin an olive tone that seemed strange beneath its vampire pallor. His hair was dark and cut short. The woman's hair, on the other hand, was a brilliant red, the sort of shade that rarely occurs in nature, and I could see bits of leaves and bark tangled up in its length. She moved just as fluidly as her companions, but something about her seemed . . . jumpy, as though she, unlike the others, was waiting for the opportunity to make her escape.

On the surface, there seemed to be nothing unusual about the third member of the group, the man who had first emerged from the forest. His light brown hair and wiry build made him no more noticeable or threatening than the others. Still, something about him felt more dangerous, more savage than his companions. I studied him from my place behind Bella's father, finally realizing what had bothered me during their approach. If the tall man was their leader, why hadn't he been the first to emerge from the trees? And why had he been off to one side, rather than at the center of the group as he was now?

Crouching lower behind Chief Swan's back, I forced the thought aside. I had more important things to worry about at the moment, like not being caught. They were close enough now that I could see their eyes, and I realized with a mixture of confusion and horror that their irises were a deep, unnatural red. I was used to seeing Bella's eyes when they were gold—or black when she was hungry—but I had never seen them this color before. I pondered it for several seconds before the obvious answer came to mind. _Visitors like us . . . who are not like us . . . _I held back a shudder. Narrowing my eyes, I glanced down toward the ground and tried to hide the fact that my green eyes very obviously did not belong here. I wondered how it was that my pounding heartbeat hadn't given me away.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carlisle step forward, Emmett and Jasper shadowing him like bodyguards. The leader regarded Carlisle for a moment, his eyes taking in the tidiness of Carlisle's clothing with a trace of envy, and then as if on cue, he and his companions shifted into a more relaxed, casual stance. He smiled and moved forward to greet Carlisle.

"We thought we heard a game," he said. My ears detected a faint French accent. "I'm Laurent." He gestured to his companions. "These are Victoria and James."

"I'm Carlisle. This is my family, Emmett and Jasper, Rosalie, Esme and Alice, Charlie, Edward and Bella." He gestured toward us in groups, not pointing us out individually. I kept my head down and tried to stay out of sight as much as possible.

"Do you have room for a few more players?" Laurent asked. He seemed agreeable enough. I tried to focus on the visitors and not on my growing sense of fear. I decided that Laurent didn't feel very threatening, at least not at the moment. Neither did Victoria. The other man, James, was the one who made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

"Actually, we were just finishing up," Carlisle replied, his tone equally pleasant. "But we'd certainly be interested another time. Are you planning to stay in the area for long?"

"We're headed north, in fact, but we were curious to see who was in the neighborhood. We haven't run into any company in a long time." Laurent smiled again. I wasn't looking up to see it, but I could hear it in his voice. I remembered the tension from the moments before and wondered why it had faded so quickly. Was Jasper using his gift to keep everyone at ease?

"No, this region is usually empty except for us and the occasional visitor, like yourselves."

"What's your hunting range?" Laurent asked casually, as though inquiring about the weather. I knew full well that he wasn't referring to grizzlies or elk, and I fought to hold back another shudder.

"The Olympic Range here, up and down the Coast Ranges on occasion. We keep a permanent residence nearby. There's another permanent settlement like ours up near Denali." Laurent leaned back on his heels slightly, as if caught off guard by something Carlisle had said.

"Permanent? How do you manage that?" he asked. The curiosity in his voice was impossible to miss.

"Why don't you come back to our home with us and we can talk comfortably?" Carlisle suggested. "It's a rather long story."

In the corner of my vision, I saw Laurent's companions turn to one another and share a look of surprise at Carlisle's words, but Laurent kept his reaction to himself.

"That sounds very interesting . . . and welcome," he responded. "We've been on the hunt all the way down from Ontario, and we haven't had the chance to clean up in a while."

"Please don't take offense, but we'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from hunting in this immediate area. We have to stay inconspicuous, you understand."

Laurent nodded. "Of course. We certainly won't encroach on your territory. We just ate outside of Seattle, anyway," he said with a laugh. I fought back another shudder.

"We'll show you the way if you'd like to run with us," Carlisle offered. "Charlie and Alice, you can go with Edward and Bella to get the Jeep," he added, his voice light and casual.

It seemed as though we just might get away with it, as though we might manage to keep these visitors from noticing that I wasn't one of them. They had already dismissed the four of us from their attention; their entire focus was on Carlisle as he gestured off down another path . . . and then everything fell apart. The air that had been still shifted, blowing a faint breeze across my forehead and toward our unexpected visitors, and James, who had remained silent during the entire exchange, jerked his head in my direction. His nostrils flared, his eyes widening with excitement as they came to rest on my face for the first time. I tried to hide behind Bella's father, but it was too late. James shifted into a crouch.

Chief Swan leaned forward slightly, his attention focused entirely on James. Beside me, Bella lowered herself into a fighting stance, and a snarling, inhuman hiss escaped from between her teeth. Gone was the sweet, laughing girl who'd smiled and waved at me from her place in the infield. She'd been replaced by something far more dangerous.

"What's this?" Laurent exclaimed, surprised. James feinted slightly to one side, testing. Chief Swan turned his head, his eyes following James's movement, but he stayed frozen in place. It was Bella who shifted sideways to counter the move. Her snarls grew louder.

"He's with us." Carlisle's voice was firm. In the corner of my vision I could see Laurent watching the scene unfold with wide, surprised eyes. His nostrils flared slightly, registering my scent. Behind him, Victoria looked as though she were ready to bolt.

"You brought a snack?" Laurent asked. The surprise hadn't completely faded from his expression. He took an involuntary step forward, and Bella snarled again. Laurent's eyes moved toward her, and he stepped back into his original position.

"I said he's with us." Carlisle's voice had grown hard, authoritative. Every trace of his friendliness from the moments before had vanished.

"But he's _human,_" Laurent protested. Somehow, he didn't sound threatening. He wasn't really intending to counter Carlisle's words. He just sounded very confused.

"Yes." Emmett was standing at Carlisle side, his size an unexpected comfort, as was the fact that his eyes were glued to James. James shifted out of his crouch, but he continued to stare at my face. Something inside of me whispered that it didn't matter that he had moved. He was only biding his time, waiting for a better chance to strike.

After a few tense seconds, Laurent spoke again. "It appears we have a lot to learn about each other." His voice was calmer, as though he were trying to soothe the hostility of our confrontation. I wondered if Laurent was trying to be diplomatic or if Jasper was employing his gift again.

"Indeed," Carlisle answered, but his voice was still harsh and unrelenting.

"But we'd like to accept your invitation," Laurent continued. His eyes moved back to me, then returned to Carlisle. "And, of course, we will not harm the human. We won't hunt in your range, as I said."

For the first time since the confrontation had begun, James pulled his eyes away from my face to throw an angry look in Laurent's direction. Then his gaze moved to Victoria, who was clearly eager to make her escape.

Carlisle studied Laurent for a moment before he spoke again. "We'll show you the way. Jasper, Emmett, Rosalie, Esme?" They moved forward as one, creating a sort of wall that shielded me from Laurent and his companions. Chief Swan, Alice, and Bella pulled away from the center of the field, herding me toward the shelter of the forest. I stepped backward on legs that felt like rubber. Some small part of me noticed when Jasper glanced back toward Alice and shook his head, but I didn't give it any thought. I was too busy staring toward the place where I'd last seen James.

As we reached the cover of the trees, Bella's father turned and flung me over his shoulder. I stared behind me as the forest dissolved into a green blur, but all I could think about was the look in James's eye. I wondered if he was right behind us.

We reached the Jeep a moment later. Before I could register what was happening, I found myself sitting in the back seat with Chief Swan climbing in beside me. Alice was already in the front. I fumbled with the off-roading harness as Bella started the engine and sent the Jeep roaring through the trees.

As Bella flew through the forest at breakneck speed, the only thing that seemed to be able to push its way past the terror was my appreciation for the off-roading harness. Numbly, I reminded myself that Laurent had promised to leave me alone. That left only James and the woman, Victoria, and I wasn't sure how much of a threat she would be. Even if James and Victoria were behind us, pursuing me like some monster out of a childhood nightmare, I was in a vehicle with three vampires who weren't likely to let them hurt me. I reminded myself of the way Carlisle had included me in the family unit when introducing us. Something about the rhythm of his voice had made me feel that I belonged. No, Carlisle and the others weren't about to let anything happen to me. I just needed to remember that one simple fact.

Taking a deep breath, I turned my attention to the other occupants of the Jeep. Beside me, Bella's father was moving his eyes from one window to another, trying to watch every tree in the forest as they flew by. In the front seat Bella and Alice carried on some sort of conversation, but their voices were too quiet, their words too rushed for me to make them out.

"Are you taking me home?" I asked, somehow knowing that this wasn't the plan. We wouldn't be going back to the Cullens' house, either, not if Carlisle was taking the others there.

"No," came Bella's clipped answer. We pulled out onto the highway, and I breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of smooth pavement. Bella turned south, away from Forks, and pushed her foot down on the accelerator.

"Where are we going, Bella?" But somehow the exact answer didn't matter. We were leaving James behind. And that was good enough for me.

"I'm getting you out of here," came the answer. My eyes moved toward the speedometer—one hundred and five miles an hour and climbing. I glanced toward Bella's father, but he was still looking out the windows, completely ignoring what was happening inside the Jeep. In the front seat, Alice was staring ahead . . . only I was pretty sure she wasn't looking at the pavement.

"I can't tell," Alice said in a soft voice. "I can't make sense of the possibilities. You have to make up your mind."

"Fine," Bella snapped. Alice winced.

"That won't work," she said. A sharp hiss escaped from between Bella's teeth.

Turning in her seat, Alice gave me a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Edward. We've got this covered." Her eyes fell on Chief Swan, and she frowned. "You don't have to do that, Charlie. He isn't following us right now."

"Right now?" I asked.

"Later," Alice explained. "He's decided to give us a head start. He'll start following your scent later."

So James _was_ planning to come after me. And Bella's yet-unspecified plan began with getting me as far away as she could in as little time as possible. I turned my eyes to study the soft curls on the back of her head. Somehow, being on the run with Bella didn't seem like such a bad thing. I'd have followed her anywhere, even if we weren't running from a vampire who wanted me to be his next meal.

"Less than a fifty-fifty shot," Alice said as she turned to face forward once more.

"He can't be that good," Bella muttered. Alice shook her head.

"I think . . ." she began, then paused, as if hesitant to finish her thought. "I think James is a tracker." Beside me, Charlie turned to stare at the back of Alice's head. Bella stiffened and punched the accelerator to the floor.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means what it sounds like," Alice answered simply, sadly. "It means that he is a very skilled hunter. He can track anyone or anything, and he's decided to come after you."

"But there are eight of you and one of him," I argued.

"That just makes it that much more exciting," Alice answered, her voice barely above a whisper. I waited for someone else to say something. No one did.

"So that's it?" I asked. "I just run forever?"

Alice turned in her seat and glanced back toward Bella's father. After a moment of contemplation, she turned her thoughtful eyes on me.

"There is another option," she said softly.

Bella turned to look at her cousin, confusion in her expression, and then in a flash, she reacted so violently that I jumped back in my seat.

"No!" she yelled. "Absolutely not, Alice!"

I stared at the side of Bella's face, wondering what I was missing. I felt like it was something obvious, like it was something I should know, but I couldn't explain why. Something, some insane suspicion touched at the corner of my mind, but I pushed it back. It couldn't possibly be what Alice was thinking. I watched as Bella's father turned his attention away from the trees outside of the car to send Alice a chastising look. Lowering her eyes, she turned back to the pavement in front of the car.

"We can outmaneuver him," Bella declared from the driver's seat, her jaw set into a firm line.

Chief Swan turned to study the back of his daughter's head for a moment, then spoke for the first time since our mad escape had begun.

"He's right, Bells. You can't run forever. If James is a tracker, he'll never stop. We'll have to kill him." From her place in the front seat, Alice nodded in agreement.

"He's right. It's the only answer."

"Kill him?" I asked in the silence that followed. "How do you kill a vampire?" I knew the wooden stake thing was just a myth.

"You break them into pieces and burn them," Alice answered. I stared at her. It sounded great in theory, but to do that, they would have to hunt the hunter, and that meant . . .

"What if he gets one of you, first?"

Alice waived her hand, dismissing my concern. "Not likely. Not with Jasper and Emmett. And you, too, Charlie."

_Charlie? _

How had I forgotten? Suddenly I realized why Bella's father had taken up a spot in front of me back at the field . . . and why he hadn't completely shifted into a fighting stance when James had caught my scent. He didn't need one. I had never, not even for one moment, been in danger because Chief Swan could stop anything—absolutely anything that moved—without even lifting a finger. He was the ultimate defensive—and offensive—weapon. That was why he'd been looking out the windows at the beginning of our escape. He'd been looking for James so that he could stop him if he had been following the Jeep.

"Okay," Bella said, "what about this one?"

Alice pursed her lips for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully. "That's got a better chance of working, at least for now."

"And the sooner we go after James, the better the chances, right?" Bella asked.

"I'll let you know as soon as we decide," came Alice's answer. It sounded like she was smiling.

Bella drove on for a couple more moments in silence. Now that she had found a plan that satisfied Alice's visions, she seemed calmer. I wondered what plan Bella had in mind and how we would explain my absence from Forks, but then I realized that we had a week before anyone would notice that I was missing. I had never told my mom that I wasn't going to Phoenix. When she got home later tonight and I was gone, she would assume that I had left for the airport without leaving a note. I could call her from the road and pretend I'd arrived safely, and she wouldn't have any reason to worry . . . unless she went into my bedroom and found the half-packed bags inside my closet. Maybe I could get some member of Bella's family to sneak into my bedroom and hide them, just in case? My plane ticket was there, too, sitting on top of the bags. If she saw that, then—

In the front seat, Alice let out a gasp. Three heads turned toward her. Bella was the first to speak.

"What is it, Alice?"

"He just caught Edward's scent."

"At the field?" I asked, confused.

"No, in town," Alice answered quietly. She was staring ahead into nothing, her expression carefully blank.

"He's going to follow it . . . to Edward's house."

"But there's no one home," I said, thinking aloud. "I'm not going back, and Mom's at work." Suddenly the blood turned to ice water in my veins. Terror clawed at my chest as I realized what Alice must be seeing.

"Alice, will he still be there when Mom gets home?"

She nodded, still staring ahead.

"Will he—" I couldn't bring myself to finish the question, but I didn't need to. When Alice turned to look at Bella, I could see the sadness and the horror in her eyes.

"We have to do something, Bella! We can't let him hurt Mom!" I said the words once, calling out her name as I waited for her to say something, to do something, but she didn't react. I was opening my mouth to say them again when I realized that I wasn't the only person in the Jeep saying Bella's name. Alice was calling out to her, her voice insistent, as though Bella had started to ignore her. Chief Swan, likewise, had started to repeat her name, but softer, as though more out of concern than anger or annoyance.

But Bella wasn't listening to any of us. She had frozen in place in the driver's seat of the Jeep, her hands gripping the wheel, her unseeing eyes staring straight ahead. Beside me, Chief Swan reached forward to lay his hand on Bella's shoulder. I saw her shudder as she pulled a sudden breath into her lungs, and then her foot was on the brake pedal, forcing the Jeep to a complete stop, even though we had been traveling at one hundred and fifteen miles an hour. I felt the cold of Chief Swan's hands on my forehead and across my chest as he pinned me firmly back against the seat. My stomach spun in little circles as the Jeep whipped around, making a one hundred and eighty degree spin before coming to a stop in the middle of the roadway.

Bella turned in her seat, her wide, horrified eyes flickering in my direction before coming to rest on her father. She stared at him for the length of several seconds, and I almost thought she had frozen again when she spoke.

"Alice, I have decided that in thirty seconds, I am driving directly back to Edward's house. Will we get there before the tracker does?"

Alice frowned. "I don't know. It's too close, but we'll be there three hours before Mrs. Masen gets home from the hospital."

Bella nodded to herself, and the horror began to fade from her eyes, determination taking its place. Her jaw set into a stubborn line.

"We're not going to let anything happen to your mother, Edward," she told me, her eyes softening as they met mine, but there was just a flicker of something in them, something that seemed . . . out of place. When she turned back to her father, there was a question in their golden depths.

"He's not going to get anywhere near Edward," Chief Swan assured her, and she nodded. Turning in her seat, she pushed her foot down on the accelerator once more. And then we were headed back to Forks, flying at the speed we had been escaping at only moments before.

"So what's the plan?" I asked.

"We know where he'll be," Bella's father responded. "We'll go get the others, and we'll kill him." From her place in the front seat, Alice shook her head.

"It won't work. He'll get away . . . and he'll figure out what you can do."

"I've got an idea," I said. Two pairs of eyes turned toward me, and a third set studied me in the rearview mirror.

"James is after me, right? He's at my house because he's looking for me. If he sees me leave and take my bags, if we make it obvious that I'm not coming back, then there's no point in him hanging around waiting for me, is there? He'll leave my house and start following me, right?"

"No!" Bella said, sounding like she was chastising a misbehaving child. "I don't want you anywhere near him."

I turned toward Bella's father. "You've got my back, right?" He nodded, his eyes narrowing slightly as he studied my face. "Alice?" I asked. Alice concentrated for a moment, then frowned.

"Bella, I need to get a clear picture of this. I need you to stop fighting it."

"Alice . . ."

"If it won't work, if it's even slightly dangerous, we won't do it, okay?"

Bella sighed. "Fine."

Alice stared off into the distance for a moment, and then a smile spread across her face. "I think it'll work," she answered, sounding relieved. "He'll follow us and leave Edward's mother alone." I released a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

"Fine, but I'm changing my mind again. We're not doing it that way."

Alice groaned. "Bella, it would have worked."

"What if he changes his mind?" Bella countered. "What if he decides to attack?"

"He won't," Alice argued. "On that, he's decided. Everything I saw centered around him drawing Edward off alone, where his chances are better. With the three of us there, it would be three against one, and he'll run from every fight with the odds against him that way."

"Bella," Chief Swan interjected from his place beside me, "all I need is to know where he is, and then he's not making a move if I don't want him to."

Leaning forward in my seat, I peered around at the side of Bella's face. She was staring off into the distance, her lower lip clamped between her teeth.

"Please, Bella. It's my mom."

Her eyebrows lowered at my words, and for a moment, she looked as though she were about to cry. She turned her head, her eyes seeking out mine.

"Promise me, Edward. _Swear_ to me that you're not going to get hurt."

"I promise," I said, meeting her eyes. Taking her right hand off the steering wheel, she reached back to clasp mine and sighed.

"Okay," she whispered. "Let's do this."

We went over the plan several times as we flew back toward Forks. Bella tried to think of every complication that could arise, and we came up with a contingency plan for every possibility, even though Alice assured us that it was unnecessary. She could see now that although James was in route to my house, we would beat him by less than five minutes. And she was certain that James wouldn't make a move toward me. Chief Swan promised that even if he tried, he'd find himself being pulled to a sudden stop by the back of his neck.

The Jeep was silent as we pulled up in front of my house. I took a deep breath as I reached for the door latch, but Bella stopped me, her fingers curling around mine. I turned back to her, noting the terror in her eyes. Squeezing her fingers in what I hoped was a gesture of reassurance, I gave her the bravest smile I could muster and stepped out into the darkness.

**_. . . . . _**

**_Thanks to everyone still following this story and offering their thoughts and opinions! I love hearing from you all. You are awesome! _**

**_I sent out a teaser from this chapter to those of you who reviewed the last chapter - I'm hoping everyone got it okay. Now I just have to decide what my next extra should be. :)_**

**_I'm also wondering if anything about Bella in this chapter will strike my readers as odd . . . as it should . . .  
_**

**_And I'm kind of wishing that Alice hadn't stopped Charlie from going after James. I'd love to see Charlie use his ability on James . . . especially the stopping him by the back of his neck part. ;)  
_**


	19. PARTING (GOODBYES)

19. PARTING  
_(GOODBYES)_

My mother had left the front porch light on. It shone out against the darkness, only barely managing to keep the shadows at bay as Bella and I made our way up the front walk. I felt as though something was watching me, as though the darkness at the edges of the lawn had eyes. I rubbed my thumb along the back of Bella's hand and reminded myself that the hunter wasn't here, at least not yet. Alice was sure of it.

As we stepped up onto the front porch, I turned to glance back over my shoulder, but Alice and Chief Swan had vanished. Turning back to the door, I slid the key into the lock and tried to ignore the way the faint click seemed to echo in the night. I pushed the door open, and Bella brushed past me, her steps just a bit too fast for normal human movement. She stood in the entryway, her eyes turning in one direction and then another, searching the darkness inside my house before she pulled me over the threshold.

I turned on every light we passed as we moved toward the staircase. I knew it didn't matter, but the darkness made me nervous. It was almost like being a child again, like I was afraid of the monsters that lurked in the shadows. But the monsters weren't imaginary anymore, and the light wouldn't protect me from what was after me now.

At the top of the stairs, Bella paused again and gestured for me to stop as she scanned the darkness once more. Tightening her grip on my hand, she pulled me toward my bedroom door. By the time I had turned on the light switch, she was already retrieving my half-packed bags from the closet.

We opened drawers at random, finishing my packing by stuffing whatever we could find into the remaining space in my duffel. As I reached down to grab the plane ticket that had fallen out of my bag, my gaze fell on the bed. Was it only this morning that I had opened my eyes to find Bella seated in my desk chair, waiting patiently for me to awaken? How was it possible that barely twenty-four hours had passed since the meadow? Since that first terrifying, exhilarating kiss? Had it been only yesterday?

How could so much have gone so wrong in so little time?

Shaking the thought from my head, I stuffed the plane ticket into my duffel and pulled the zipper closed. I followed Bella back down the stairs, turning off the lights as we went. At the bottom of the steps, she paused again, analyzing the scene before pulling me forward.

I dropped my duffel beside the kitchen counter and searched the junk drawer for a pad of paper and a pen to leave my mother a note. As I was digging through screwdrivers and rubber bands, I felt Bella brush faintly against my side. I glanced up in alarm, but her face was a serene mask as she averted her eyes toward the kitchen window and then back again. She lifted her hand to brush two fingers against my wrist, caressing the face of my watch. I understood. The time that Alice had given us before the hunter would arrive had passed. James was here. We were playing for an audience now.

Leaning my elbows on the counter, I fought to keep my hand steady as I wrote, but the pen wobbled as it slid between my sweaty fingers, and the letters didn't come out right. I hoped my mother wouldn't notice. I prayed she would just assume that my handwriting was sloppy because I had been in a hurry.

"Tell her that Carlisle is giving you a ride to the airport," Bella said, breaking the silence for the first time. "Tell her that he'll be on the same flight that you'll be on, that he has a medical conference in Phoenix." I glanced up at her face, belatedly remembering that I had told Mrs. Lowery that I wouldn't need a ride to the airport because I had found someone else to take me. "Carlisle will need an alibi anyway." I nodded, adding Bella's suggestion to the note and signing it.

Tossing the pad and pen back into the junk drawer, I gave the kitchen one last glance before taking the duffel from Bella's hand and turning away. I told myself not to look back as we switched out the lights and headed for the door. I tried not to think about how long it would be until I saw this house again.

I expected Bella to step out the front door first, to keep me inside as she checked the darkness for signs of the tracker, but Alice was waiting outside on the porch. She nodded to Bella, who turned and locked the door behind us, and together they ushered me toward my car. Bella jingled my car keys.

"I'll drive," she said softly as Alice took the duffel from my hands and pushed me into the passenger's seat. "I can see better in the dark."

I didn't argue. I only nodded silently as Alice climbed into the back. A second later Bella appeared in the driver's seat, and then we were off.

Bella drove my car as if it were her own. As she flew through the stop sign at the end of the street, headlights flared behind us. I jerked around in my seat to see what was there, but Alice reached forward and placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

"It's just Charlie in the Jeep," she explained. I gave a jerky nod and turned to face forward again as Bella accelerated past a speed limit sign.

"So . . . he was there?" I asked after a moment. Bella nodded.

"We passed the five minute mark as we were coming down the stairs."

"We could smell him outside," Alice added from the backseat. "He was very careful to keep his distance, though."

I nodded nervously, my heart rising in my throat. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

"He's already read the note by now. He decided to do that when he saw you writing it."

James had been close enough to see what I was doing as I wrote the note? I shuddered.

"I think he's following us now," Alice said, her voice oddly faint as she looked ahead into the future, "but he's reconsidering some things, changing some of his plans. Things keep shifting around."

"He's following us?" I asked, latching on to the most terrifying part of Alice's vision. "Will he catch us?"

"No," she answered. "He won't try. He's still outnumbered. He still wants to get you alone, but he's rethinking his strategy."

Bella made a sudden turn, and I realized belatedly that she had turned off the highway and onto the long, twisting drive that led toward her family's homes. I hadn't seen so much as a hint of it in the darkness. Behind us, the Jeep followed.

We came to a stop in front of the big white house. I was reaching for the door handle when suddenly the door was pulled open in front of me, and Bella's father dragged me out of my seat. At least this time he didn't throw me over his shoulder as he ran us into the house.

As we stepped into the main room, I caught a brief glimpse of everyone standing in a semicircle around the front door—they must have heard us coming—but that was all I had the chance to see. Less than a second later, I found myself standing on my own two feet once more, but I was pinned against the wall, Bella and her father shielding me from the rest of the room. Chief Swan was silent, but there was a hissing growl coming from Bella that sent goose bumps down my spine. It took a couple of seconds for my bewildered eyes to take in the details of the scene before us, but I froze as I registered the reason for their alarm.

Laurent was standing in the middle of the room.

"He's following us," Alice announced as she came in through the door behind us. She didn't seem the least bit alarmed by Laurent's presence as she skipped across the room to Jasper's side.

Laurent frowned. "I was afraid of that," he said.

"What will he do?" Carlisle asked, his tone devoid of the warmth I'd come to associate with him.

"I'm sorry," Laurent answered. "I was afraid, when you defended him, that it would set him off."

"Can you stop him?" Carlisle asked, but Laurent shook his head.

"Nothing stops James when he gets started."

"We'll stop him," Emmett spoke from his place across the room. There was a gleam in his eye, something almost joyful that made me glad he was on our side. Beside him, Rosalie seemed far less enthusiastic. She was watching the proceedings with an expression of distaste. When she realized that I was looking in her direction, she narrowed her eyes slightly and stared back. I could see the fury burning in their depths as they met mine. I looked away.

"You can't bring him down," Laurent warned. "I've never seen anything like him in my three hundred years. He's absolutely lethal. That's why I joined his coven."

From my place behind Chief Swan, I stared at Laurent, feeling the last piece of the puzzle click into place. _That_ was what had been bothering me about Laurent's show of leadership at the field. It had been nothing more than an act, a farce designed to keep us from knowing that James was truly the leader of their group.

Laurent returned my gaze, his bright red irises burning into me, but he was staring at me as though _he_ were trying to solve some sort of a puzzle. Shaking his head, he turned back to Carlisle.

"Are you sure it's worth it?"

Bella's responding snarl was so loud that it filled the room. Laurent's eyes flew toward her, and he took a step back.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to make a choice," Carlisle told him.

Laurent glanced around the room, taking in every face. He shook his head.

"I'm intrigued by the life you've created here, but I won't get in the middle of this. I bear none of you any enmity, but I won't go up against James. I think I will head north, to that clan in Denali." He paused, considering, before giving us one last warning.

"Don't underestimate James. He's got a brilliant mind and unparalleled senses. He's every bit as comfortable in the human world as you seem to be, and he won't come at you head on. I'm sorry for what's been unleashed here. Truly sorry." He sent another fleeting look of bewilderment in my direction, then bowed his head.

Carlisle studied him for the length of several seconds before speaking. "Go in peace," was all he said.

Laurent nodded in parting, his eyes sweeping the room once more, and then he disappeared out the door.

"Do you know where he is?" Carlisle asked, turning to face Alice. Behind him, Esme swept across the room toward a keypad I hadn't noticed before. Huge shutters began to slide across the glass, sealing up the giant window that made up the south wall.

"He's decided to meet up with the female," Alice answered, her hand in Jasper's. "He should be several miles out right now."

"What's the plan?"

"We get Edward out of here, and then we hunt him," Chief Swan answered. Carlisle frowned. "It's the only way. You heard it yourself. He's never going to stop."

Carlisle considered for a moment, then nodded once, seemingly resigned to a course of action that he didn't wish to take. "And Edward?"

"I'm taking him to Phoenix," Bella answered.

"What?" I asked, surprised. Bella hadn't told me where we were going. I had merely trusted Alice's assurances that I would be safe. The where hadn't really mattered. "But that's the cover story, Bella."

"Which is why Phoenix is the last place he'll look. James _knows_ it's a cover story. He'll never expect us to actually take you there."

Alice grimaced. "Bella . . . I don't think that's going to work anymore."

Bella turned toward Alice, the side of her face blurring with the speed of the motion. "Why not?"

"I told you he was reconsidering. His plan is still the same—to draw Edward off alone and attack, but he's added to it. I see him following Edward, and I see him finding Edward, no matter what you do to cover his tracks." She frowned thoughtfully. "I don't think he's just tracking Edward anymore. I think, when he was watching you together at Edward's house, he figured out that you aren't going to leave him. I think the reason he keeps finding Edward is because he's tracking you, too, Bella."

"No! We're not doing this, not if he's coming after you." Bella turned back to face me, the movement much slower this time.

"Don't be ridiculous, Edward. I'll be fine. Emmett or Jasper will come with us, and the others will stay here and take care of James. He'll never have the chance to follow us, and you'll be safe."

"Not according to Alice." I glanced back across the room. Alice's eyes went misty for a moment, and she frowned. She probably couldn't see anything changing because Bella hadn't changed her mind yet. "Bella, it's too dangerous. You can't." But Bella only set her jaw, preparing for an argument that she wasn't planning to lose.

_As stubborn as a mule_, her father would say.

Her father.

I honestly didn't know what Chief Swan thought of me. He seemed to enjoy carrying me around like a sack of potatoes, which led me to believe that he didn't like me very much, but he had to see that any plan that involved Bella coming with me was too dangerous for her. She would listen to him, wouldn't she? I turned toward him, hoping that he would understand my silent plea, but he was already watching me, his eyes narrowed slightly as he studied the side of my face. Our eyes met for the briefest of moments, and then he spoke.

"He's right, Bells. Even if this tracker does lose Edward, he'll still find him if he's tracking you. It's not safe for him if you go."

I frowned. It wasn't exactly what I'd been hoping for, but then Chief Swan's eyes glanced briefly toward my face again, and I realized that he was choosing his words very carefully.

"Someone else should go," he told her. "Then you stay here with the others and lead James into a trap." He reached forward to place a hand on her shoulder. "I'll take Edward to Phoenix. I won't let anything happen to him."

Bella hesitated for a moment, then nodded, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed her father shifting his attention to something behind me. He was appealing to Alice, I realized. He and Alice were the two people Bella most trusted in the world. She would never let me go with anyone less.

"I'll go with him," Alice spoke from her place beside Jasper. She paused for a moment. "And so far, it looks like it'll work." I turned back to Bella's father.

"Will it be safe for the others without you here to stop him?" I asked. From his place on the other side of the room, Emmett chuckled.

"Don't worry about us, Edward." A grin spread across his face as he punched his right fist into the palm of his left hand. The resounding crack sounded like rocks smashing together. "It wouldn't have been any fun for the rest of us with Charlie around anyway."

Chief Swan glanced in Emmett's direction, then rolled his eyes. I turned toward Jasper, the other member of the family that Alice and Bella had identified as a fighter, but he was paying no attention to the rest of the room. He was staring into Alice's eyes in a way that made me feel like I was intruding on a private moment. I was about to look away when he dropped Alice's hand and turned toward me.

"We need to trade clothes," he said, and before I could register what had happened, Jasper had flown across the room and was carrying me up the stairs, his previous aversion to me apparently forgotten. He sat me down in a dark room somewhere on the second floor. At least I thought we'd only gone up one set of stairs.

"Why are we doing this?" I asked. I was sure I'd heard the trading clothes part, but Jasper hadn't bothered to turn on a light, and I couldn't see a thing. I pulled my shirt off over my head and held it out in the darkness. Something plucked it out of my hand, and another piece of fabric was put in its place

"To throw him off your scent," he answered. "He'll smell you on what I'm wearing and follow me, instead. It won't work for long, but we don't need it to. It just needs to work long enough for us to get you away."

Something else bumped against my arm, and I reached up to grab a pair of jeans. I tried not to think about how weird this was, standing in a dark room and trading clothes with a guy I barely knew. Clothes that didn't fit right—too short in some places, too loose in others. As soon as I had finished, I heard the sound of a door opening, and then we were flying back down the stairs.

They must have finalized their plans in my absence; everyone seemed ready to play their part. Carlisle moved about the room, distributing cell phones to Bella, Alice, and Esme. Emmett was standing by the far wall, a heavy backpack slung over one shoulder and an impatient expression on his face. As Jasper deposited me beside Bella, Chief Swan came in through the front door. I wasn't sure where he'd been, but the baseball cap he'd been wearing since the ill-fated game was gone, and he was carrying his Stetson in one hand. He reached over to give something to Bella as Carlisle came across the room toward me.

"Jasper and Bella will be taking the Ferrari," he explained. "Hopefully James will catch your scent and believe Jasper is you." He turned toward the center of the room.

"Esme and Rosalie will be taking your Volvo." Rosalie was glaring at me, but she paused to throw an annoyed glance in Carlisle's direction. I felt, somehow, as though something must have happened between them while Jasper and I were upstairs, but I was too distracted to give much thought to whatever that might have been.

"Emmett and I will take the Jeep. Jasper and Bella will meet up with us later. Charlie, Alice—take the Mercedes. You'll need the dark tint in the south." I stared around the room, trying to piece together everyone's various roles.

"Alice," Carlisle asked. "Will they take the bait?"

Alice closed her eyes for a moment, then smiled.

"He'll track Jasper and Bella. The woman will follow Edward's car, so you'll be clear to take the Jeep. We should be able to leave after that."

I stared at Alice, the entire plan coming together in my head. James would be following Bella . . . and they wanted him to. She and Jasper would lead him to Emmett and Carlisle, and the four of them would attack. Bella wasn't just the bait; she was also part of the hunting party.

I swallowed against the lump in my throat and turned toward her. What if this was it? What if something happened to one of us?

"Bella—" I began, but I couldn't find the words for what I needed to say. I reached out for her instead, cupping the sides of her porcelain face in my palms and praying she could read all of the things that I wanted to tell her in my eyes. As I leaned forward to kiss her, she met me halfway.

I kept her face cradled in my hands as if I could somehow hold her in place, as if I could keep her from leaving. I tried to show her everything I was feeling, everything I had ever felt, just in case I never had another chance, but how could I show her everything she was to me? How could this one brief moment make her understand how strong and beautiful and infinitely precious she was? How could one kiss make her see that I'd only been half alive until I'd met her, that the thought of something happening to her now was unbearable? But maybe she did understand because her lips were moving desperately against mine, and everything I gave to her, she gave back. And then it was over all too soon. I leaned my forehead against hers as I struggled to catch my breath.

"Promise me, Bella," I whispered, repeating her words from before. "Swear to me that you're not going to get hurt."

"I promise," she whispered back, her golden eyes never leaving mine as she took one slow step backward. And then she vanished out the door.

"Don't worry, Edward," Jasper muttered over my shoulder. "I won't let anything happen to her." And then he, too, was gone.

I stared at the empty doorway, only barely registering the odd expression on Chief Swan's face as he watched me. All I could think about was Bella . . . and whether or not I would ever see her again. We waited in silence until the little silver phone in Esme's hand vibrated. She raised it to her ear.

"Now," she said. Rosalie lifted her chin in the air and stalked out of the room without even glancing in my direction, but Esme paused to lay her hand on my shoulder before following her out the door.

"Be safe," she whispered.

Several minutes passed by, and then Carlisle lifted the phone in his hand to his ear. He sent me an encouraging smile and began to walk toward the kitchen. Grinning widely, Emmett followed, turning to give me a thumbs up as he disappeared from sight.

And then there were only the three of us left as we waited in the silent house. I stared at the door as the minutes ticked by. And then Alice's phone was at her ear.

"They're in position," she told us. She nodded to Bella's father, and he disappeared out the door.

"Does this still look good?" I asked her. She smiled warmly, but then something flashed in her eyes and an apologetic frown touched the corners of her lips.

"I'm sorry about that," she said. "He'll stop doing it soon, I promise."

Before I could ask her what she meant, I felt myself being lifted through the air as Chief Swan appeared out of nowhere and swung me over his shoulder once again. I stared down at Alice's smiling face as she followed us through the door, leaving the big white house empty behind us.

. . . . .

**_I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! As always, a big "thank you" for all of the reviews! You guys are awesome! I try to make sure I respond to you all and answer any questions you may have, but if I miss you, feel free to nag me. ;)_**

**_This chapter is a bit shorter than some of the others have been recently, but since I had less time to work on it, that turned out to be a good thing. I'm not sure, but I think the next chapter may turn out to be a bit longer. I have a conversation between Charlie and Edward that I'm going to be slipping in (a conversation that will give a bit more insight to Bella and her father). Who knows? Part of that conversation may end up being part of your "extra" if you review this chapter. (Willa wiggles her eyebrows.)  
_**

**_Thanks for reading!  
_**

**_Willa  
_**


	20. WAITING (IMPATIENCE)

20. WAITING  
_(IMPATIENCE)_

It was hard to find a comfortable position in the backseat of Carlisle's black Mercedes. I tried to sleep, but even in dreams, I was tormented by hazy, half-formed images of James chasing Bella through the mountains. They replayed over and over again in an endless, nightmarish loop.

When I opened my eyes the next morning, I felt as though I hadn't slept at all. I stared at the back of Alice's seat as my sleep-fogged brain ran through every detail of the last twenty-four hours. Turning my head to the side, I squinted out through the darkly tinted window, but I couldn't make out any of the words on the highway signs as we sped by.

"We're in northern California," Alice explained, turning around in her seat. She smiled and handed me a fast food bag and a sealed cup of orange juice. Apparently they had detoured off the highway to buy me breakfast.

"Thanks," I muttered. I opened the bag and stared down at its contents. Unbidden, the memory of eating breakfast with Bella the day before came rushing back. Where was she now, I wondered? Was she safe? What about the rest of her family? I took a deep breath and pushed the thought aside. Bella was okay. She had to be. If I considered any other possibility, I was going to go crazy.

Glancing around the car, I searched for some distraction, for something to keep my mind off what was happening back in Forks. My eyes came to rest on the back of the driver's seat.

I still hadn't decided what Chief Swan thought of me. There were times—like when he had helped to rescue me in Seattle, and more recently when he had defended me at the field—when I suspected he didn't mind me nearly so much as he let on. There were times when we had even been on the same side, like when he'd convinced Bella that coming with me to Phoenix was a bad idea. But he still had very few words to say to me, and most of our interaction since the baseball game had involved him throwing me over his shoulder.

I turned my eyes to the back of the passenger's seat again. At least Alice seemed to like me, and most of the others, too—except for Rosalie. They barely knew me, but now that my life was in danger, Bella's entire family had come to my aid.

I stared down at the half-eaten sausage biscuit in my hand, suddenly wondering what my family would have done if the situation had been reversed, if it were Bella's mortal life in danger, instead of my own. My mother liked Bella—she was thrilled by the prospect of me dating her—but this all-out plan of hiding me was beyond anything my mother could have come up with on her own. And my father . . . well that would never have happened. E. Anthony Mason, Sr., Attorney at Law would never have allowed himself to be connected to something like this. He preferred to be able to solve his problems by throwing enough cash at them to make them go away. What would he do now, I wondered, if he knew the situation his son was in?

Nothing, because he wouldn't have listened long enough for me to explain it to him in the first place.

Crumpling up the wrapper, I shoved it back into the paper bag and slid down in the seat. Maybe I could get some more sleep. There was nothing else for me to do.

. . . . .

It was twilight when we pulled into the hotel parking lot in Phoenix. The sun had only just slipped below the horizon. My legs were stiff, and my ankle throbbed as I limped toward the hotel lobby. Behind me, I could hear the noises of Sky Harbor International Airport.

Our hotel suite was comfortable but unremarkable; I gave the furnishings only a brief glance before heading toward the bathroom. After twenty-four hours in the backseat of a car, all I wanted was a shower and the chance to change out of my ill-fitting clothes—Jasper's clothes. Maybe then I would start to feel like myself again.

When I emerged from the bathroom several minutes later, the curtains were pulled firmly closed. Chief Swan sat on a striped sofa in front of the TV. The news was on, but he didn't seem to be paying any attention to it. Alice rose from a loveseat on the other side of the room and came toward me.

"So what now?" I asked.

"We stay inside, and we wait," she answered. "Are you hungry? I don't know how often you have to eat . . . or how much. It's been a while since you ate this morning."

I was opening my mouth to tell her that I was fine when my stomach growled, betraying me. She reached for the phone.

The hotel's room service was fast—I had to give them that—but regardless of my body's hunger, I just didn't have an appetite. I picked at the food they brought, barely tasting what I managed to eat. Eventually I gave up and started pacing the floor. How long would it be until someone called to tell us what was happening back in Forks? Was the fact that they hadn't called a bad sign? Or was no news good news?

I paused my pacing and turned toward Alice. She was staring at the television screen, just as Bella's father was, but there was something in her expression that made me nervous. I wondered what she was seeing . . . or if she was seeing anything at all. They were like stone statues, and suddenly I felt strange being the only person in the room in motion. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and released it. When I opened my eyes again, Alice was holding the remote control out toward me.

"We're not really paying any attention. You can find something you want to watch."

I hesitated for a moment, then walked across the room to take the remote from her hand. I sat down on the opposite end of Chief Swan's sofa, taking care not to disturb his Stetson, which sat on the middle cushion. I flipped through the channels, watching his face carefully to make sure he didn't mind, but he just kept staring straight ahead, never saying a word.

Game shows. More news channels. A couple of cartoons. I finally settled on an old Western, hoping it would be less likely to annoy Bella's father, but he didn't seem to react to my choice. I watched a group of cowboys herd cattle across the prairie as I remembered how he had stepped in front of me at the field. Was something different now? Had he changed his mind about me when James had decided to come after me? Had he minded me less before I became more trouble than I was worth? I didn't know the answers to any of those questions, but I did know that I was in love with his daughter. I had to make some kind of peace with him.

"Probably not very accurate, is it?" I ventured.

"Nope," Bella's father responded, but that was all he said. He never moved a muscle. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a scowl cross Alice's features, and she flicked her gaze in his direction. I waited another moment, then took a deep breath.

"You don't like me very much, do you?" I asked. He turned his head away from the television screen, his eyes focusing on me for the first time since we'd left Forks.

"I haven't decided yet," he answered after a moment. He watched me for the length of several heartbeats before turning away again. Across the room, Alice frowned.

"Well . . . thank you. For helping me. Even if you don't like me."

He didn't turn his eyes away from the television when he spoke this time.

"I didn't say I don't like you. Just that I haven't decided yet."

Alice let out an audible sigh and rose from her loveseat to cross the room. As she passed behind the sofa, I thought I heard her mutter, "Men!"

Bella's father turned to glance back over my shoulder. Judging by the expression on his face, he was having some sort of silent conversation with Alice. I kept my eyes on the movie until Chief Swan turned back toward the TV. He seemed to mull over something for a moment before speaking again.

"Look, don't take it personally," he said in a strained tone.

"Okay."

He glanced behind me again, his eyes on whatever Alice was doing. His face twisted into a grimace.

"She's . . . my daughter," he said, sounding like he was being forced to speak against his will. "And . . . she cares about you, for whatever strange reason. And that gives you the power to hurt her." He didn't look back to the television screen. His eyes were pinning me to the sofa cushions now.

I shook my head. "I'd never hurt her like that, sir."

"Maybe not on purpose."

And then I understood. It wasn't me, personally, that he objected to. It was the fact that his daughter had fallen in love with someone who was nowhere near as durable as she was. I was human, and my days were numbered. Even if James didn't kill me, something else would—an accident, a disease, some unknown weakness in my body present since the day I'd been born. Even if I died of old age, I would still die. And Bella wouldn't.

Unless . . .

The idea was so crazy, so completely insane that I shoved it to the back of my mind.

"Is that why you're here?" I asked instead. "To keep Bella from being hurt?"

Chief Swan didn't answer, but Alice stepped around the end of the sofa to stand at my side.

"What Charlie's trying to say is that Bella's different now," she explained. "I've known her for fifty years, but there was always something missing before. She'd smile, but it wouldn't touch her eyes. She'd laugh, but it always sounded off. But she's happy now. You're what she was missing. None of us want to think what she'd be like if something happened to you."

I nodded as I thought of Bella spending decades without that light in her eyes, without the music of joy in her laughter.

"Was she always like that?" I asked her father.

He frowned faintly, then nodded.

"What about . . . before?" I asked carefully. "You knew her then, too." He lowered his eyebrows slightly, wondering, I was sure, just how much Bella had told me.

"She told me about the boarding house . . . and the fire. How you took her to Carlisle."

Chief Swan seemed to consider something for a moment. His expression remained unchanged, but something softened in his eyes.

"She was such a busy little thing. Always so sad and so serious. Worked herself half to death keeping that boarding house going."

"I thought it was her mother's boarding house," I said, immediately regretting the interruption, but Chief Swan didn't seem to mind.

"It was. Mrs. Dwyer was a nice woman, but hopeless when it came to running anything. Bella was the one who kept it going. Most kids her age were out enjoying their youth, but Bella just worked her fingers to the bone cooking and cleaning and changing sheets. I never saw her that she wasn't working. She hardly ever smiled." He frowned, and something made me remember what Bella had said about him getting attached to people. Apparently she'd had firsthand experience with that. "Guess that was why I did it. Seemed such a shame to let the poor girl die when she'd never really had a chance to live."

I nodded. Somehow it was easy to imagine Bella running a boarding house almost by herself. She was so determined about some things.

"She's happier now than she ever was back then . . . or has been since. I guess you're the cause for that . . ." He trailed off, then shook his head. "I don't want to know what she'd be like if something happened to you."

I nodded silently, that strange idea from before flitting across my thoughts before retreating into the shadows.

It wasn't long before I excused myself to bed. I was tired, and it was after midnight, but I didn't think I could sleep. Mostly I just wanted time to myself. My mind was too full of everything that had happened and everything Alice and Chief Swan had said. I needed time to think.

. . . . .

Alice was setting a tray of food on the dresser when I awoke the next morning. She frowned over at me.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

I didn't know how she could have. She hadn't made a sound.

"No, it's okay." I pushed back the covers and crawled out of bed, grateful that Bella and I had somehow managed to grab a pair of pajamas in our mad rush to pack. I picked up the tray and carried it back toward the bed.

"Have you heard anything yet?"

She shook her head.

"Can you . . . see where they are? What they're doing? Is everyone okay?"

Alice nodded. "Jasper and Bella were going to lead the tracker as far north as possible, letting him catch up to them slowly. Carlisle and Emmett were following along behind. Then, when the time was right, they were going to close ranks and spring the trap. Esme and Rosalie were going to head west as long as they could keep the female behind them. If she turned around, they were going back to Forks to keep an eye on your mom. No one's called, but that's a good sign. It means the tracker and the female are close enough that they don't want them to overhear. So far, I haven't seen the plan or the outcome change."

"So they're safe?"

Alice nodded again. "I haven't seen anything to make me think otherwise."

I let out a deep breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding and allowed myself to feel relieved long enough to dig into the breakfast tray in front of me. I liked talking to Alice. There was a warmth and an openness about her that made me feel like I could ask her anything, and there was something that I definitely wanted to know.

"Can I ask you another question?"

"Sure."

"How do you become a vampire?"

Alice paused, frowning at me as I took another bite of scrambled eggs.

"Hmmmm," she said. "I knew we were going to come to that. Has Bella told you anything?" I shook my head.

"Just that it's . . . painful."

She frowned again, but I got the feeling that she wasn't frowning at me so much as at herself.

"I don't really remember it happening to me, and I've never done it myself, so I can't speak from experience." I nodded, waiting for her to continue.

"As predators, we have a glut of weapons in our physical arsenal—much, much more than really necessary. The strength, the speed, the acute senses—not to mention those of us like Charlie, Jasper, and I, who have extra abilities as well. And then, like a carnivorous flower, we are physically attractive to our prey."

I nodded. Bella had gone over this part in the meadow.

"We have another fairly superfluous weapon." She smiled weakly. "We're also venomous. The venom doesn't kill. It's merely incapacitating. It works slowly, spreading through the bloodstream, so that, once bitten, our prey is in too much physical pain to escape us. Mostly superfluous, as I said. If we're that close, the prey doesn't escape. Of course, there are always exceptions. Carlisle, for example."

"So if the . . . prey isn't killed, and the venom spreads, they turn into a vampire?" Alice nodded. I had suspected as much, but it was good to have my theory confirmed.

"It takes a few days for the transformation to be complete, depending on how much venom is in the bloodstream, how close the venom enters to the heart. As long as the heart keeps beating, the poison spreads, healing, changing the body as it moves through it. Eventually the heart stops, and the conversion is finished. But all that time, every minute of it, a victim would be wishing for death."

I held back a shudder. I remembered Bella's jaw tightening as she told me about the pain. I thought of her analogy to chocolate cake. How many times, I wondered, did something go wrong? How often was the vampire unable to stop? I pushed the thought from my mind, searching for some other topic of conversation.

"Why do you think you don't remember?"

"I don't know. For everyone else, the pain of transformation is the sharpest memory they have of their human life, but I remember nothing of being human."

"Nothing? Not even your whole name?"

She shrugged. "I've just been 'Alice' for as long as I can remember." Her expression was thoughtful. I wondered if it bothered her, not knowing.

"That's ironic, isn't it? You can see the future, but the past is a mystery."

Alice smiled faintly and shook her head. "I can see possible futures, but I can rarely be one hundred percent certain how anything will turn out." A cloud passed over her eyes for just a second, and she took a step toward the bed.

"I'll let you get dressed," she said, taking the empty tray. As I watched her disappear through the doorway, I felt a nagging sensation that I was missing something, but I couldn't begin to guess what it was.

. . . . .

The afternoon dragged on. Alice had resumed her spot in the loveseat, and Bella's father was back to his silent, thoughtful self. He still sat in the same spot on the end of the sofa, his pale Stetson perched beside him on the cushion. He had barely acknowledged my presence when I'd come out of the bedroom that morning, and he hadn't glanced at me since. Still, it felt as though we had crossed some invisible barrier the night before. At least I knew how he felt about me now.

The television meteorologist was in the middle of the local weather report when Alice gasped.

"Something's changed," she announced, her eyes wide. My stomach twisted into a knot, then untied itself. I didn't know what was happening, but something told me that it wasn't good news.

"What is it, Alice?" I hadn't seen Chief Swan get up from the sofa, but suddenly he was kneeling beside her as she stared at—no, through—the far wall of the hotel suite. I slid down the sofa toward them.

"A . . . room, I think. It's shaped like an 'L.' It's dark, and there's trash on the floor. There are strange statues . . . and a row of poles along one wall with odd faces on them. There are colors on the walls. He's there with someone, but I can't see who."

"Do you know where the room is?" Bella's father asked. He spoke with the confidence of someone who knew what questions to ask. He must be used to this sort of thing.

"No." Alice shook her head. "It's not finished. Not all of the details are filled in. All of the decisions haven't been made that will put him there yet."

"How long?" he asked.

"It's soon. He'll be there today . . . or maybe tomorrow. He's waiting for something . . . or someone. And he's in the dark now."

"In the same place?"

"No."

"What's he doing?"

"Nothing . . . he's just sitting . . . and waiting. Planning, I think."

"Can you see where?"

"No, it's too dark." And then her eyes regained focus. She blinked and looked up at us.

"What just happened?" I asked, but somehow I already knew.

"He changed his mind," Alice answered. "He made some decision that changed his future . . . and ours. It will lead him to the places I saw."

"So he got away from the others?" I asked, trying to piece everything together.

And, as if on cue, a strange ringing sound broke the silence. Alice was already across the room before the first ring had ended. The cell phone was at her ear.

"Carlisle," she whispered. I waited, holding my breath as I listened to one end of the conversation.

"Yes," she said, answering some unknown question. Her eyes settled on me as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line.

"I just saw him." She launched into a description of what she had seen. "Whatever made him get on that plane . . . it was leading him to those places." She paused, listening again. "Yes," she said, and then she turned toward me. "Edward?"

I was already halfway across the room by the time she'd said my name. I grabbed the phone as she held it out.

"Hello?"

"Edward?" Somehow her voice was even more beautiful than I remembered.

"Bella," I whispered in relief. "Are you safe? Is everyone okay?"

"Of course."

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Outside of Vancouver. It looks like he gave us the slip. We think he's on an airplane and heading back to Forks to start over. I'm so sorry, Edward." The sadness in her voice twisted something in my gut.

"No, don't be. It's okay." And at that moment, I was almost relieved that the tracker had gotten away. At least it put him farther away from Bella.

"Don't worry. We covered your tracks. There's no trail for him to follow, so he'll have to go back to the beginning and start over. We're going to go back to Forks and find him again."

"What about Mom?" I asked.

"She's okay. Esme is keeping an eye on her. The female turned and went back to Forks, but Rosalie has been tracking her. She's been all over town, probably searching for a scent trail. She went through the school and even out to the airport, but there was nothing for her to find." She sighed. "We'll find them, Edward, and we'll kill them, and then it'll be safe for you to come home."

"I miss you," I told her.

"I miss you, too," she whispered into the phone. Something in her beautiful voice almost cracked on the last word.

"I feel like part of me is missing, like you took a piece of me with you." I smiled sadly. "I want it back. I want you back."

"We'll make it safe, Edward, I promise, and then we can be together again."

"I love you," I whispered into the phone.

"I love you, too," came the reply. And then the line went dead.

I stared at the wall for a moment, letting her last words echo in my ears before turning back to the others, but they were paying me no attention. Alice was sitting on the sofa, leaning over the coffee table, and sketching something on a piece of hotel stationary. I set the phone down and leaned in to see.

It was the first room, just as she had described it: the main part dark, the floor littered with paper and debris. The room continued on, bending and disappearing around the corner. Against a half wall to the left stood the row of short poles, the strange faces visible atop them. On the far wall was a pane of broken glass—not a window, but something else. Strange statues stood in recesses along the edges of the room, some of their pieces broken and littered on the floor. It seemed familiar . . . too familiar . . . and then I realized why.

"Dinosaur Dan's," I said, feeling the cold crawl up my spine. Suddenly my legs didn't feel strong enough to hold me up. I sat down on the sofa.

"What?" Alice asked, jerking her head up from the drawing.

"It's Dinosaur Dan's," I said again. "It's a kid's restaurant, or it used to be. There were a couple of them around, but they closed years ago. The owner died suddenly, and none of the heirs wanted to run them. Or something like that." I pointed toward the half wall, the poles with the faces that stood against it. "That was the counter. Those are bar stools. They were shorter, kid-sized, and the backs of the seats were shaped like cartoon dinosaur heads." I pointed toward the shadowy figures that stood in alcoves along the wall. "There were dinosaur statues all through the place. Some of them were motorized. They'd turn their heads or swish their tails or something." I pointed at the pane of broken glass. "That was a water tank. They had the underwater dinosaurs behind of it, so that it looked like they were swimming. It took up the whole wall." I pulled my hand away from the drawing, unnerved to see how badly it was shaking.

"My step-mother Meg had my sixth birthday party there," I finished numbly.

"The restaurant, was it here in Phoenix?" Alice asked.

I nodded. "Yes. I don't know where the others were." I tried to remember the exact address, but I couldn't, so I named some of the streets around it. "The area it was in has gone downhill in the last few years, but it used to be nice."

Alice frowned. "Would you have any reason to go there now?"

I shook my head. "I haven't been in that neighborhood in years. And the restaurant's closed."

Alice's frown deepened. "Edward, are you sure your father's not in Phoenix?"

The blood that had turned to ice water in my veins froze completely over. I felt sick.

When my father said he had complications with a case and that he was going out of town, it usually meant that he was in Hawaii with his new secretary or that he had snuck off to some beach in Florida with a client's wife. But what if, just this once . . . I swallowed against the lump in my throat.

"Alice, can I use your phone? I just need to call my father's office. I won't tell them anything." She nodded softly.

My father's secretary answered on the first ring. She assured me that my father was, indeed, out of town on business, that he had left that morning and wouldn't be back for a week. I breathed a silent sigh of relief, and then, with Alice's permission, left them her cell number. I asked them to call if my father changed his plans and decided to come home early.

I settled back onto the sofa and stared at the picture Alice had drawn of Dinosaur Dan's. She was drawing another picture now, a vague, unidentifiable image of the dark room. There were walls, and a sofa, but nothing else was visible in the dim light.

I forced myself to nibble on the hotel food that Alice had ordered for me but eventually gave up to stare at the television screen some more. After several hours, I decided it was useless and headed for bed. Maybe in the darkness I would actually be able to get some sleep.

As I walked across the bedroom to where my duffel sat atop the dresser, my eyes drifted toward the window. I had been hiding here for days now, without so much as a glimpse of the outside world. I lifted the curtain slightly, no more than an inch, and peered out into the darkness.

A thin stream of late night traffic moved on the freeway below. Beyond it, cars sat unattended in the airport's long-term parking garage, and just below my window, a woman in a hotel maid's uniform stood holding her purse. She was waiting, I imagined, for a ride to come pick her up, now that her shift had ended.

It seemed so strange to think that only a few short weeks ago I had been a part of that world. I had lived a boring, ordinary life, a life free of murderous vampires intent on killing me. My biggest worry had been the paper that I had due in English or the test I had in Biology, but somehow thinking of that life now only made me miss Bella more.

Letting the curtain fall back into place, I turned away from the window and shuffled across the room toward the bed.

. . . . .

**Sorry I was a little late with this one! February was . . . busy, to say the least.  
**

**The conversation between Charlie and Edward was fun. I wrote it while imaging Billy Burke's facial expressions, which just makes it awesome. :) Their chat was originally longer, but I cut it down, mostly because Charlie just isn't a very chatty guy. As it was, it took Alice standing behind of Edward with her arms crossed and giving Charlie "the look" to get him to open up as much as he did. ;) There _was_ something very important that was originally revealed there . . . it would come out in New Moon Reflected. . . if I ever got around to writing it . . . but since that's doubtful, some of you will probably see it later as an extra. :)  
**

**Thanks again for reading and reviewing! You guys are wonderful!  
**


	21. THE CALL (PHONE CALL)

21. THE CALL  
_(PHONE CALL)_

I jerked upright in bed, my heartbeat hammering in my ears. My eyes searched the shadows in the corners of the darkened room as I struggled for breath. Where was I? What was happening to me? A bead of cold sweat slid down between my shoulder blades as I tried to remember. Phoenix. I was in the bedroom of the hotel suite in Phoenix.

It had only been a dream.

Letting out a ragged breath, I ran my hands over my face, but I couldn't rub away the images of the nightmare. Every time I blinked, I could still see James in the darkness, hiding just behind my eyelids as he reached out toward me with blood dripping from his fingertips. The screams still echoed in my ears. Not my screams. Bella's.

I shuddered and turned toward the nightstand. The glowing numbers on the hotel alarm clock told me that it was just past two-thirty in the morning, but I knew there was no point in trying to go back to sleep, not with the nightmare so fresh in my mind. Throwing back the sweat-dampened covers, I crawled out of bed and shuffled into the living room. Alice and Chief Swan glanced up at me from their place on the sofa.

"Can't sleep," I muttered as I limped past them. My eyes fell on the piece of paper lying on the coffee table—a new sketch drawn on a piece of hotel stationary. Alice's latest vision, I assumed.

"You saw something else?" I asked, leaning in. Alice nodded and turned the paper around to face me.

This, I somehow knew, was the dark room, the room where James was waiting, but whatever uncertainty had been blocking Alice's vision before was gone. There was a bookcase along one wall and a door leading out into a hallway. A large screen television was backed up against another wall, facing a sofa that sat in the center of the room. Behind the sofa was a large window, the drapes pulled open to reveal the night-lit city below. The bookcase, the television, the sofa—none of it was even slightly familiar . . . nothing except the view out through the glass . . .

My mind went numb as the memory snapped into place. There was no denying what was right in front of me.

"What is it?" Alice asked, her eyes registering the shock that must have shown in my expression. "Do you know where this is?"

I tried to nod, but I couldn't seem to move.

"It's my father's condo," I answered. My voice sounded faint, distant, as though it were coming from some far off place.

Vaguely, I registered the flutter of a breeze to my left and the sound of Alice's soft murmurs coming from across the room, but the majority of my attention was glued to the drawing. Some small part of my brain wondered when my father had redecorated.

"Edward?" I lifted my head to see Alice standing beside me, the phone in her hand. I stared at her numbly.

"Edward, they're coming to Phoenix to get you. Bella, Carlisle, Jasper, Emmett—they're all coming. They're going to take you somewhere safe."

"Bella's coming here?" I asked dully, her words slowly seeping into my brain. There was a screaming sound inside my head—the memory of Bella's screams from my nightmare—and then something snapped inside of me.

"No! She can't! The tracker's here! He'll-"

"Edward, nothing is going to happen to Bella. They're going to catch the first flight out of Seattle. We'll meet them at the airport, and she and Carlisle will take you somewhere safe."

"But . . . what if my father comes home? What if the tracker goes back to Forks to Mom? What if he goes after Meg? Or someone at my father's office?" Suddenly, the list of people that James could use to get to me seemed endless.

Alice gave me a reassuring smile, but something about it didn't quite touch her eyes.

"Your mother has Rose and Esme looking after her, and Jasper and Emmett are staying here in Phoenix with Charlie and me. We're not going to let him hurt anyone."

"What if he gets away again? What if he finds out where Bella and Carlisle take me?"

"He won't get the chance," Bella's father answered. His voice was cold. Determined. Deadly. "We know where he's going to be, and once you're safely on that plane, we're going after him. There are four of us and one of him. The odds are not in his favor."

. . . . .

There was no way I was ever going to get back to sleep.

I tried taking a warm shower, but while the water washed away the sweat from my dream, it did nothing to cleanse the fear from my mind. I dressed and took up a position behind the sofa, pacing back and forth as Alice and Chief Swan sat waiting for . . . I didn't know what, exactly.

Bella and the others were coming to Phoenix, and as much as I wanted to see her, I was terrified by the thought of her and the rest of her family coming here. I tried to remember that Bella and I would be somewhere safe, somewhere away from this place. I reminded myself of the odds—four vampires, some of them gifted, against one—but somehow that didn't help. The tracker had already escaped from them once, and he was no fool. He had to have known that targeting me would bring the whole Cullen family down on his head, but he had done it anyway. Was there something more, something that we didn't know about James that would tip the scales in his favor? I shook the thought from my head. No. I was just being paranoid. The others surely knew more about this than I did, and they were confident about their plan to keep me safe and dispose of James. What reason did I have to doubt them?

Tired of pacing the same seven foot section of carpet, I headed back to the bedroom to start packing, but I had so little to pack that I was done in five minutes. I sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall until the ringing of Alice's phone jarred me back to the present.

The first thing I noticed as I returned to the living room was that Chief Swan was gone. Alice stood beside the sofa, speaking rapidly into the phone, her words coming too fast for me to understand them. I glanced back through the bedroom door toward the alarm clock on the nightstand. Five-thirty.

"They're just boarding their plane," Alice explained as she lowered the phone. "They'll land at nine-forty-five."

I nodded and tried to tell myself that everything would be all right.

"Where did Chief Swan go?" I asked.

"He went to check out."

"You aren't staying?"

Alice shook her head. "We're relocating closer to your father's condo."

Of course. _Let the hunt begin . . ._

I nodded and glanced toward the sofa. There was too much time left between now and nine-forty-five, and if I started pacing again, I was going to go crazy. I stepped around the end of the coffee table and reached down for the remote—

The phone in Alice's hand rang again. I turned toward her just in time to see a flash of something—surprise?—cross her features as she lifted it to her ear.

"Hello?" She paused, listening to the person on the other end of the line. "No, he's right here." She held out the phone toward me. _Your father,_ she mouthed.

My father? If he had gotten Alice's number, then he must have called the office. Fear pooled in the pit of my stomach. Had he just been calling to check his messages? Or did this mean he was planning to come home? I took a deep breath, reminding myself that if my father was calling, then he had to be okay. I reached out to take the phone from Alice's hand.

"Dad?"

"Edward?" came the voice on the other end of the line. It was slightly muffled, a bad connection, I assumed, but I'd know my father's voice anywhere. I offered Alice a one-sided smile and a thumbs-up. "Would you tell me what in the hell is going on?"

Of course. Just like my father. No inquiries about whether or not I was okay. No questions about whose phone he had just called. Just straight to the yelling, and if he'd called at five-thirty in the morning to yell at me, then I was probably about to get the lecture of my life. I turned toward the bedroom. I knew Alice would still be able to hear my end of the conversation, but somehow I didn't want her to be able to hear the reprimand I was about to receive from my father.

"Dad? Where are you? Are you coming home?"

A shuffling sound came through the phone, and then my father's voice, farther away, yelling, "Edward, who is this man? What is going on?" I barely had time to register the words before another voice came on the line.

"Don't say a word until I tell you to."

I froze just inside the bedroom door. It was a soft voice, an almost pleasant voice, a voice that I had never heard before, but I knew exactly who it belonged to.

"Now, I don't need to hurt your father, so do exactly as I say, and he'll be fine." James paused, letting his instructions sink in. "Good," he said, sounding pleased. "Now repeat after me, and do try to sound natural. Say, 'No, Dad, everything's okay.'"

I took a shaky breath, forcing air past the knot that was twisting in my chest. I tried to remember what "natural" sounded like. "No, Dad, everything's okay."

"I think you can do a little better than that." He sounded a bit amused. In the background, I could hear my father demanding to be untied.

"Why don't you go into another room and close the door? We don't want your friends to know what's happening, do we? I know your father doesn't. That wouldn't turn out well for him. Now say, 'No, Dad, you don't have to come home.'"

"No, Dad, you don't have to come home," I repeated as I closed the bedroom door behind me.

"Now, are you alone? Just answer yes or no."

"Yes."

"But I'm sure they can still hear you."

"Yes."

"Now say, 'Don't worry, Dad.'"

"Don't worry, Dad," I repeated. The knot in my chest tightened. There had to be some way to save my father.

"This worked out rather well for me. I was prepared to wait, but your father came home sooner than I had expected. His secretary called and left your number for him so that he'd get it if he got home early and checked his messages before calling in to the office. She's very efficient, don't you agree? Too bad he decided to wait until he got home to call. I bet you were going to warn him not to come home, weren't you?"

I didn't answer. I didn't think he wanted me to. My head was spinning. My fault. This was all my fault.

"Now I want you to listen very carefully. I'm going to need you to get away from your friends. Do you think you can do that? Answer yes or no."

I hesitated. How could I get away from Alice and Chief Swan? If I made any sort of decision, Alice would see it. If I tried to escape they could outrun me, and even if I did it in public, where they couldn't show the world how fast they could move, Bella's father could still keep me from getting away.

"Your father's waiting, Edward. Yes or no?"

"I don't know," I answered truthfully.

"That wasn't one of your options. Should I ask your father if you can?" He paused, letting the threat sink in. "Now, I'll ask again. Do you think you can get away from your friends?"

"Yes," I answered, knowing it was the only answer he would accept. I didn't know how, but I had to find a way . . . unless . . . maybe there was another option. Maybe I could just tell them the truth, warn them that the tracker had my father. Surely one of the Cullens would know what to do. The tightness in my chest eased.

"That's better. Now this is what you have to do. I want you to go to your father's condo. Don't worry if you don't have a key. The door will be unlocked. Next to the phone, there will be a number. Call it, and I'll tell you where to go from there."

I already knew what he would tell me, of course, where he wanted this all to end. Would that knowledge give us the upper hand?

"Can you do that? Answer yes or no."

"Yes," I answered, planning it all out in my head. Alice and Chief Swan knew where James would be. Could they sneak into Dinosaur Dan's and rescue my father while James was still waiting for me to call him from the condo?

"Before noon, please," he added politely. "I haven't got all day."

_Noon._ Maybe this would work. The plane was landing at nine-forty-five. Six against one was even better odds.

"Now you sound like a smart young man, so I shouldn't have to tell you this, but if I get the slightest hint that you have any company, well, that would be very bad for your father. You must know enough about us by now to realize how quickly I would know if you tried to bring anyone along with you. And how little time I would need to deal with your father if that was the case. Do you understand? Yes or no."

The knot was back in my chest, tighter now than it had been before. "Yes."

"Now make sure that you don't make your friends suspicious when you go back to them. Tell them that your father called, but that you told him you were okay, and that he shouldn't come back to Phoenix. Now repeat after me, 'Thank you, Dad.'"

"Thank you, Dad."

"Say, 'I'll see you soon.'"

"I'll see you soon."

"Goodbye, Edward. I'll be waiting." And then the line went dead.

The phone fell out of my hand and onto the bed. I stared down at it as I tried to decide what to do.

Part of me still wanted to walk out into the living room and tell Alice everything. To explain to her that the tracker was holding my father hostage and offering to exchange my life for his, but there was a cold terror seeping into my blood and a voice that whispered that James was right. If I told Alice or Chief Swan anything, James would find out. If anyone tried to shadow me to Dinosaur Dan's, he would know. Maybe the Cullens would get there before he escaped. Maybe they could kill him before he got away, but all he needed was a second, the length of one heartbeat between realizing that they were coming for him and his death . . . and that second would be more than enough time for him to kill my father. I sat down on the edge of the bed and dropped my head into my hands.

So what options did I have left? Only one. I had to do as James had said. I had to walk willingly to my own death. But first, I had to find a way to get away from Alice and Chief Swan, and I had to find it fast.

The airport. That had to be it. It was a public place, a place with witnesses, and we would be there as the sun came up. Maybe I could just get away from them for a moment. Maybe I could get outside in the sunlight where it would be impossible for them to follow without tipping off the world that something wasn't right about them, and then, somehow, I just might stand a chance.

But Bella . . . I would never see Bella again. I would never have the chance to explain. The knot of terror in my chest turned to pain as I remembered what Alice and Chief Swan had said. For the first time in her life, Bella was happy. She had found a reason to start living again, to hope, and I was about to take it away . . . but I didn't have a choice. I had to find a way to tell her goodbye, a way to explain it all and tell her that I loved her one more time.

I took a deep breath and reached down for the phone. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, trying to school my features into a normal expression, then stood and walked out of the room.

"He's not coming home," I told Alice as I set the phone down on the coffee table. I kept my eyes on the carpet, on the sofa, anywhere but on her face. I wasn't ready to look her in the eye and lie just yet. "His secretary called and gave him the message. He was just calling to see if everything was okay." My gaze fell on Alice's drawing, on the pad of hotel stationary beneath it.

"I don't know . . . how long all of this is going to take. If I don't come home at the end of the week, my mother is going to worry. If I write a letter explaining to her that I'm safe and that I'll be home when I can, can you see that she gets it if I'm not home on time?"

"Of course," Alice answered. I wasn't looking at her, but I could hear it in her voice. She knew I was acting strangely, and she wondered why.

I reached down for the paper, forcing my expression to stay blank as I turned toward her. "Thanks." I kept the eye contact brief, less than a second, then turned and walked back into the bedroom.

So much to say, I realized as I sat the pad down on the nightstand. So much to say and too little time. I stared at the paper, trying to find a way to say everything I needed to say without breaking Bella's heart. But that was impossible, wasn't it? I reached for the pen.

"Bella," I began, and suddenly the words wouldn't stop.

_I love you. I love you more than I thought it was possible to love another person, and I'm so sorry. I never wanted to leave you, and I can't stand the thought of hurting you, but I don't have another choice. _

_He has my father. He'll kill him if I don't go. Maybe he'll kill us both in the end, but I have to try._

_Please don't blame Alice or your father. It wasn't their fault. And please don't try to come after him. This is all a game for him, a challenge, and I think that's what he wants. He had to have known that your family would try to protect me if he made me his target, and he has to know that you'll want to kill him. I think he wants you to try. But please don't. I can face my own death, but I cannot bear the thought of yours._

_I love you. I'm sorry._

_Edward_

I stared at the letter for five minutes before I managed to fold it up and seal it in the envelope. I wondered how long it would take for them to think of it, to realize what it was. And I prayed that Bella would understand.

. . . . .

**_Hello to everyone still reading and reviewing this story! Thanks for hanging in there with me! _**

**_Just one note on this chapter - in the original story, James tricks Bella with a recording of her mother's voice from an old home movie, and maybe some of you were expecting him to do something like that again, but let me assure you (as I'm sure you are already suspecting) that Edward is NOT listening to a recording of his father's voice. I told you there would be a few changes to the original story along the way . . . and here is the biggest one of them. (I have to switch things up on you when you think you know what to expect, now don't I?)  
_**

**_And, to the unsigned reviewer who assumed that Nessie would be impossible in this universe - I love Nessie! Do you honestly think that I could even start this story without working that little detail out first? ;) Of course I have something up my sleeve . . .  
_**

**_Willa_**


	22. IN THE DARK (HIDE-AND-SEEK)

22. IN THE DARK  
_(HIDE-AND-SEEK)_

I was about to die.

I stared at the television screen, my eyes focusing on an early morning news story about a serial arsonist at loose in the city, but my mind was elsewhere.

If I had even the slightest chance of getting away from my vampire bodyguards, I would need to find a way to keep Alice in the dark. From what I understood, her gift seemed to be dependent upon people's decisions. Her visions would remain the same until someone, somewhere made some choice that changed the course of future events. Was that the answer then? To wait until the last possible moment to plan my escape?

Alice's soft gasp pulled me from my thoughts. I turned my head to see her leaning forward over the desk, her hands gripping the edge.

"Alice?" I asked, but she didn't respond. Her eyes were empty and unfocused as she stared ahead into a future that only she could see.

I rose to my feet, barely acknowledging the sound of the opening door. Before I could take the first step in her direction, Chief Swan was already standing in front of her, his hands resting on her shoulders.

"Alice?" he asked. "What is it?"

"Edward," she whispered in answer, her voice barely loud enough for me to hear. And then, just as quickly as the vision had come, it was gone. Alice blinked and shook her head, then turned toward me.

"Sorry," she said. "Sometimes they sneak up on me when I'm not prepared for them." She sounded calm, relaxed. I almost believed that there was nothing wrong. Almost.

"What did you see?" I asked. Alice waved her hand dismissively.

"Just the same place as before," she answered, but her eyes flickered toward Chief Swan's face, and I knew she wasn't telling me everything. Her vision, I suspected, was still of James and Dinosaur Dan's . . . only this time, I was there with him.

"Everything's settled with the front desk," Bella's father said casually, as if nothing had just happened. I turned toward the bedroom door.

"I'll go finish packing, then."

I had already packed my meager belongings hours before, but I knew this would be my last chance to prepare for my escape. I didn't know what I'd need, and I couldn't plan too far ahead, so I unzipped my duffel and dug through its contents until I found my wad of emergency cash. I waited several minutes before coming out of the bedroom. Alice and Chief Swan were standing on opposite sides of the room, looking as though they hadn't just been having a hurried conversation about her vision. Neither of them said a word, but I could feel their eyes following my every move. Something about the future had changed. They didn't know what it was, but they weren't about to let me out of their sight until they knew what had gone wrong.

Alice reminded me about breakfast as the door to the hotel suite closed behind us. I didn't feel like eating, but I didn't want to make them suspicious, so I settled for a small carton of milk and a donut from the hotel's complementary breakfast bar. As we drove toward the airport, I ate my tiny breakfast in the backseat of Carlisle's Mercedes and tried not to think about the fact that I was eating my last meal.

We parked on the fourth floor of the parking garage and took the elevator to level three, where passengers unloaded. As we headed toward a seating area close to the metal detectors, Alice and Chief Swan discussed the flights departing in just a few hours. They were trying to find another stop-off, I assumed, the best new place to hide, but even as they talked, I knew they were watching me. Each hair on my head was monitored. Every breath I took was noted. Getting away from them wasn't going to be easy.

I stared off into the distance at the passengers arriving from an earlier flight. I knew Bella wasn't among them—the arrival board said this flight was from Chicago—but I couldn't stop myself from pretending that she was. I could imagine her coming into view, the sweep of her golden eyes as she searched the room for me, the smile that lit up her face when she found me in the crowd . . . only I wouldn't be there for Bella to find. That fantasy would never come to pass. I looked away.

"Don't worry," Alice murmured into my ear. "It won't be too much longer. The plane will be arriving ten minutes early."

Ten minutes early? _No_. I wasn't ready. I'd been banking on that ten minutes, planning on using it to study my possible escape routes, but suddenly I was out of time. I glanced up to where a group of new arrivals disappeared around the corner toward the bathrooms. It was now or never.

Two sets of eyes followed me suspiciously as I stood. I gestured back around the corner.

"I just need a bathroom break before they get here." Bella's father nodded and rose to his feet. Apparently I wasn't even allowed to go to the bathroom alone.

I walked away from the seating area, Chief Swan following behind as I tried to figure out how to get away from him. I waited until we'd turned the corner, until we were out of sight from Alice's watchful eyes, then stopped.

"You're not going to follow me into the bathroom . . . are you?"

Chief Swan raised his eyebrows slightly.

"I mean, my girlfriend's father . . . following me around bathrooms? It's . . . kind of creepy."

He stared at me for a moment, then his gaze darted toward the bathroom door, considering. Glancing back in my direction, he rolled his eyes.

"Fine. I'll wait over there." He gestured toward the door of a bookstore we had just passed and muttered something about "teenagers." I nodded and slipped through the bathroom door. Leaning against the first wall I came to, I tried to look like I was waiting for someone as I scanned the room for what I would need.

Airline passengers are constantly reminded never to leave their luggage unattended. Unfortunately, no one ever takes this into consideration when designing airport bathrooms. It's nearly impossible to keep everything you own with you when it won't fit into the stall, and sometimes passengers have to take the risk of leaving some of their bags unattended. This inconvenience was what I was counting on, and it didn't take long for me to spot what I needed.

He was older than me—early twenties, perhaps—slightly heavier and probably an inch or two shorter, but he had a carry-on bag over one shoulder and a suitcase in each hand. I watched his face as he realized that he wouldn't be able to take everything into the stall. Then he took what I assumed to be the most valuable bags, leaving a harried looking duffel sitting against the wall as he closed the metal door behind him.

Perfect.

I glanced around the crowded bathroom. No one was looking. I walked toward the unattended bag and unzipped the end, hoping no one would notice as I pulled out the first two articles of clothing that caught my eye—denim and gray fleece. Re-zipping the bag, I headed for the closest open stall.

I changed clothes in record time. The jeans were too short, but the waist was a size too big. They hung loosely on my frame, riding just low enough to make up for the difference in my height. The hooded sweatshirt was too big as well, but that was a good thing. I didn't know how well covering my scent with someone else's would work against Alice and Chief Swan, but they weren't used to seeing me in baggy clothes. Hopefully, that would work to my advantage.

I emerged from the stall, tossing my old clothes into the trashcan as I pulled the hood up over my head. Half a dozen businessmen in suits stood against the far wall. I waited until they headed toward the door, then slipped out behind them.

I hadn't chosen this bathroom by chance. I had chosen it because it was ten feet from the elevators. I kept my head down, changing my steps to a swagger unlike my usual pace as I kept to the wall on the other side of the group. I didn't dare look back as they passed the open elevator door. I simply ducked inside and kept my face hidden as the doors slid closed behind me.

The elevator was full, and I was thankful. It meant that there were more people to mask my scent if Alice and Chief Swan tried to track me. Adrenaline pumped through my veins as the elevator slid slowly toward its destination. I didn't even look around as the doors opened. I just limped as fast as I could toward the exit.

There were no taxis in sight as I stepped outside, but just a few feet away, the doors of the shuttle to the Hyatt were beginning to close.

"Wait!" I yelled, throwing myself toward the gap in the doors.

"This is the shuttle to the Hyatt," the driver informed me, looking a bit bewildered.

"Great! I thought I'd missed it."

The driver frowned, probably wondering why I wasn't carrying any luggage.

"I . . . left something at the hotel," I explained. The driver just shrugged. I hurried to an empty seat and sunk down, trying to hide behind the hood of my stolen sweatshirt.

Were they looking for me yet, I wondered? Even if I'd managed to escape the airport before Chief Swan realized I had left, he must have gone into the bathroom to check on me by now.

As we pulled into the Hyatt, I saw that there were not one, but two cabs at the curb. At the closest, a man and a woman were pulling suitcases out of the trunk, but farther down, a man in a business suit had just closed the door and was walking away. I hurried down the shuttle steps and up to the side of the second cab. Yanking open the door, I told the cabbie my father's address and slid into the backseat. He pulled away from the curb without a word.

For the first time since I'd run from the airport bathroom, I turned to look behind me. There was nothing unusual on the other side of the back window glass, just the Hyatt and the shuttle and the tired looking people still stepping out onto the curb. Bella's plane would be landing soon. I tried not to think about her face as her eyes scanned the terminal, as she realized I wasn't there.

I stared blindly out the windows as we drove deeper and deeper into the city. I thought of my mother. She would never know what had happened to me. I would be just another missing teenager, another picture on a bulletin board at the post office. I wondered how long she would hold on to the hope that I would one day reappear on her doorstep.

"Here you go, kid." I pulled my eyes away from the buildings outside. In the reflection of the rearview mirror, I could see the cabbie watching me expectantly.

"Can you wait for me?" I asked.

"Do you know how much-" He paused mid-sentence, his eyes on the wad of bills I'd tossed onto the seat. "Sure, no problem."

I opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement. One foot in front of the other, I forced myself into the building and onto the elevator.

The door to my father's condo was unlocked, just as James had promised. I stepped into the living room, realizing numbly that this was the exact angle from which Alice had drawn her vision. There was the wall of bookshelves, the leather sofa, the large, expensive-looking television. The only difference was that the drapes were closed now, the city outside blocked from view. Through the door to my left was what Alice hadn't been able to see—the bar that ran along one wall of the kitchen . . . and the telephone at the end of the counter. There was a notepad beside it.

I walked across the room on wooden legs and lowered my eyes to the number written on the paper. Trying to stop my hand from shaking, I reached for the phone.

"Hello, Edward," James answered after only one ring. "I wasn't expecting you so soon."

I listened in the background, hoping to hear my father's voice, some reassurance that he was still alive, but all I heard was silence.

"Where is he? Is he okay?"

"Your father is perfectly fine," came the answer. "Don't worry, I have no quarrel with him. Unless you don't come alone, of course." He sounded almost amused by the idea.

"I'm alone," I told him.

"Good. Now, do you remember your sixth birthday party?"

"Dinosaur Dan's," I answered automatically, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu. We'd been heading toward this for days.

"Yes. Do you remember how to get there?"

"Not exactly. It's been a while."

"I thought that might be the case. The address is on the back of the phone number."

I reached down to tear the paper off the notepad and turned it over. There it was, in the same neat script.

"Can you find it?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Well, then, I'll see you soon." I listened to the click on the other end of the line as my stomach churned, then placed the phone back into its cradle. Taking one last look at my father's newly redecorated condo, I turned and walked out the door. As I stepped outside, the cabbie, true to his word, was still waiting. I climbed into the backseat.

"Where to now, kid?"

I glanced down at the paper in my hand and gave him an address a few blocks away from Dinosaur Dan's.

"You sure you want to go there?" he asked. "Nothing much in that neighborhood anymore."

"I'm meeting someone," I answered. The driver shrugged and pulled away from the curb.

This was it, I realized. This was the end. Soon I would be gone. Dead. Bella would have nothing but a note from me to say goodbye. My mother would have even less. And my father . . . what about my father? If James kept his end of the bargain and let my father go, at least I'd be able to see him one last time.

"You sure this is where you want me to leave you, kid?" the cabbie asked as he pulled to a stop.

"Yeah. It's okay." Reaching up to hand him the rest of his money, I pushed open the door. As the sound of the cab's engine faded in the distance, I turned to gaze back toward the airport and the beautiful girl with golden eyes. Then I started down the cracked and broken sidewalk toward my final destination.

The walk was too short. All too soon I found myself staring at the front windows of what had once been Dinosaur Dan's. They were dirty and boarded over in the places where they had been broken, but the words _Dinosaur Dan's_ were still visible in the glass. I reached out to open the door.

There was no electricity. The only light inside the abandoned restaurant was what managed to filter in through the dirty windows. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see what remained of the child-sized bar, the once colorful kid-sized bar stools faded and dirty, just as Alice had drawn them. Graffiti covered the walls where arcade games had once stood, and the display case to the left was full of dusty and broken beer bottles. The floor was covered with yellowed newspapers and trash.

I stepped farther into the room, toward what had once been the aquarium. Shards of dirty, broken glass littered the floor, and the tables along the far wall had been torn out. Some of them lay in a heap to the right, against a headless brontosaurus.

And just beyond a pile of plastic dinosaur parts was my father.

He was sitting in a folding chair, his head hanging down so that his chin rested on his chest. His ankles were tied to the legs of the chair, and his hands were bound behind his back. He was wearing a dirty dress shirt, and his tie had been loosened. Vaguely, I remembered seeing that tie years before. I wondered how long he'd owned it.

"Dad?" I asked. He lifted his head and squinted through the darkness.

"Edward?"

I took a step toward him, then stopped. James was here somewhere, watching every move I made. If I untied my father, would he object?

"I'm here," I called into the dirty room, willing my voice not to break. "I came," but I was greeted only by silence . . . and the strange, creeping feeling that there was something . . . off . . .

"Edward?" my father said again, turning his head toward me. "Is that you?"

"It's me, Dad." I took another step forward. "I'm sorry. This is all my fault."

My father's eyes met mine, and even as he opened his mouth to speak, something was already tilting in my brain. A tiny voice whispered that something was very, very wrong.

"Oh,_ mon chéri_," he said. "You should not be so hard on yourself."

And then he began to smile.

I stepped back in confusion as I watched the ropes that bound his ankles vanish into thin air. He pulled his arms around from behind his back as he stood, and then, as he stepped toward me, he began to _melt._ I watched in horror as his hair ran down off his head, lengthening and darkening in the dim light. His red tie began to melt, as well, twisting and stretching until it covered his entire body. His shoulders folded into themselves, and his face twisted and curved inward until he wasn't my father at all. He was a dark-haired woman in a short red dress, a woman with eyes the color of blood and skin so pale that I knew immediately what she was.

"James, you did not tell me he was so delicious," the woman purred, her words coated in a thick French accent. Her eyes skimmed their way from my feet up to my face and then back again. I stared at the empty chair behind her as I tried to understand what I'd just seen.

"You've spent more time around him than I have, Véronique," came a familiar voice from behind me.

The dark-haired woman frowned. "But I never got close enough. You would not let me."

I didn't understand what was happening, but one thing was clear.

"He isn't here," I croaked.

Her lips shifted into a pout. "No. Sorry."

"Where is he? Is he safe?"

Véronique lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug.

"He's still on his business trip." I turned to see James stepping out of the shadows to my left. "Wherever that is."

My father wasn't here. He wasn't even in Phoenix. He was safe, but my relief lasted barely a second. My father was safe, but I wasn't. I had walked right into James's trap.

"Isn't it better that he didn't have to be involved in all this?" James asked. I didn't answer.

"How did she do that?" I asked instead, my eyes drifting back across the room. A slow smile spread across James's face, and he leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms in front of his chest. His stance wasn't menacing. He didn't look like a killer. He looked like someone settling into a casual conversation with a friend, but then I saw his eyes. They were black, with just the faintest hint of red around the edges of the irises. James was thirsty.

"I'm sure, by now, you've learned that some of our kind have certain . . . abilities. My dear Véronique has a rather unusual one. She can take anything you see or hear and make it look or sound like something else. She made herself look like an old photograph of your father. She made me sound like your father on the phone. All she needed was a recording of his voice . . . and to be close enough to you when I called . . . and she was right across the parking lot of your hotel, listening in on another phone while we had our little chat."

"You knew where I was?" Even now, knowing that I was about to die, the realization that he had discovered my hiding place was terrifying.

James chuckled. "Of course I knew where you were. I just didn't want to take the chance of going to get you, not when your girlfriend's _father_"—he paused to chuckle at the word—"was waiting for me." He smiled at my puzzled expression before continuing.

"When Victoria couldn't get to your mother, I had her find out more about you . . . and about your friends. Then she gave me Charlie Swan's name. That caught my attention. I heard a story once about a vampire named Charlie Swan. Seems Charlie had an interesting ability. He could stop objects in motion. All he needed to do was use his mind."

"I've been thinking about Charlie Swan for years, so I was overjoyed to find the connection. What a challenge! But this was a bit unexpected, so I had to alter my plans. I wanted to get to you, but going up against a gifted vampire who knew what I wanted changed the odds, so I decided to bring in an . . . old friend of mine to even them up. Véronique was only happy to help." He paused to smile over at his companion.

"A little excitement is nice every once in a while," Véronique said, a mischievous smile replacing her pout.

But I wasn't paying attention to Véronique's smile. I was replaying James's words in my head, trying to make them make sense. He'd been thinking of Bella's father for years? A challenge?

And then, with sickening clarity, I understood. James was such a skilled tracker that hunting humans had gotten too easy. He'd come to prefer the challenge of hunting other vampires, instead. He was the vampire equivalent of a serial killer, and Bella's father, possibly the rest of her family as well, had become his newest target.

"I didn't know where you were, at first," James continued, seemingly oblivious to my horror. "I'd heard you say that you were going to Phoenix to visit your father, but I never dreamed you meant it. It was obviously a cover story. But then I had a feeling . . . a hunch, you might call it. Wouldn't it be the perfect ploy to go to the last place you should be when you're hiding—the place that you said you'd be? So I contacted Véronique and asked her to come to Phoenix. She thought you'd probably stay close to the airport—so much easier to make a fast escape, you know—so she stuck to the hotels close by. It only took her a couple of hours to catch the trail of two vampires and a human. She's been watching you at a distance ever since."

Something clicked in my memory—the woman I'd seen through the window the other night, the hotel maid waiting for a ride. Somehow, I just knew it had been Véronique.

"It was certainly useful to know where you were, but I couldn't figure out how to get you away from your bodyguards. Charlie's ability could be troublesome, and while Véronique could have pretended to be one of your friends and snuck in herself, there was no way for me to get close to you, so I decided to pay your father a visit at the address Victoria found in your school file. He wasn't home, so Véronique dropped by his office. Did you know that your father's secretary writes _everything_ down? There was even a note on her desk with a phone number and instructions that your father should use it to call you if he decided to come home early. Véronique also found a photograph in your father's office, a picture of you blowing out the candles on your birthday cake here at Dinosaur Dan's."

I remembered the picture, now that he mentioned it. My father said he kept it in his office because his clients liked to think of him as a family man.

James glanced around at the remains of the restaurant.

"I must say the place has seen better days." He shook his head, then turned back to face me.

"When Victoria called to tell me that your girlfriend had gotten on a plane to Phoenix, I knew my time was running out. I was about to lose a golden opportunity, so I planned this little get-together."

"Why?" I managed to ask. "Why me?" But that old, familiar feeling was creeping back in, the feeling that I already knew the answer.

"How could I resist?" James asked. "Do you think they'll try to come after me when they find your body? Will they try to avenge your death?" His dark eyes brightened. He was excited by the idea. What I'd written to Bella in the note was right. This was what he'd wanted all along. I was just the bait.

"No. I left Bella a message. I told her not to."

James laughed.

"Bella?" he asked. "Now, what would I care about a little girl? What threat could she possibly be to me?" An amused smile touched the corners of his mouth. "But I do want to get her mad. That's the key, I think, getting Bella mad. They'd do anything for her, wouldn't they? Even come after me." James reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small tape recorder.

"You wouldn't mind if I left them a little message of my own, would you? I borrowed this from your father. He uses it to make notes to himself. Dictate letters to his secretary, that sort of thing. It came in very handy for Véronique when she needed to know what he sounded like. An old photograph can only go so far, you know." He smiled to himself.

"I just don't think they'll be able to resist hunting me after they listen to this. And I wouldn't want them to miss anything. It was all for them, of course. You're simply a human, who unfortunately was in the wrong place, at the wrong time . . . and indisputably running with the wrong crowd, I might add."

James turned back to his dark-haired companion. "I'll be just a bit longer. I hope you don't mind."

Véronique's eyes skimmed over me again, her lips curving into a deadly grin.

"No, not at all," she replied. "I would love to join you, but I know how you hate to be interrupted. Let me know when you are finished." Then, with one last glance in my direction, she disappeared into the shadows.

James stepped toward me, smiling as he pushed a button on the recorder. A light on the side started blinking. This was it. My time was up. James was about to kill me, and then he would set his sights on Bella and the rest of her family, and there was nothing I could do to stop any of it.

"But before we begin, I would like to rub it in, just a little bit. The answer was there, all along. It happened once, oh, ages ago. The one and only time my prey escaped me."

"You see, the vampire who was so fond of this little victim made the choice that your Bella was too stupid to make. When the old one knew I was after his little friend, he stole her from the asylum where he worked—I will _never_ understand the obsession some vampires seem to form with you humans—and as soon as he freed her, he made her safe. She didn't even seem to notice the pain, poor little creature. She'd been stuck in that black hole of a cell for so long. A hundred years earlier and she would have been burned at the stake for her visions. In the nineteen-twenties it was the asylum and the shock treatments. When she opened her eyes, strong with her fresh youth, it was like she'd never seen the sun before. The old vampire made her a strong new vampire, and there was no more reason for me to touch her then. I destroyed the old one in vengeance."

"Alice," I realized, wondering why it seemed so strangely obvious now.

"I was surprised to see her in the clearing. The one victim who escaped me. Quite an honor, actually." He frowned. "And she did smell so delicious. I still regret that I never got to taste . . ." He trailed off, narrowing his eyes. "But that doesn't matter now." He tilted his head to the side, considering.

"Well, I suppose we should get on with it. And then I can call your friends and tell them where to find you . . . and my little message."

James began to circle, studying me as he moved. He looked like a sculptor analyzing a piece of marble before deciding where to begin. All I could think was that I was about to die. James was about to kill me, simply so that he could record my death and deliver it to Bella's family. And then he would set his sights on them.

But there was still one last chance.

Alice had seen us at this broken-down restaurant. Even if they hadn't been able to follow my scent from the airport, they would still know where to find me. James hadn't been confident enough to face Bella's father when the odds were two on two, but if Bella's family came now, the odds would be six on two, and they would have surprise on their side. They could end this now, before James had a chance to turn the tables against them.

How much time would they need to get here, I wondered as James moved out of my line of vision? How long had he wasted telling me his plans? Ten minutes? Fifteen? How far were they behind me? If I could stall him, make him drag this out, could I keep him here long enough for Bella and her family to kill him before he could come after them?

My eyes met James's as he circled back in front of me. He wanted me dead, but he wanted to record my suffering first. If I played along and gave him what he wanted, it would be over sooner, but if I could hold on, if I could find a way to bear the unbearable, I might just be able to give Bella's family a chance to get here, a chance to save themselves . . . and me, if I was lucky.

James leaned forward in a menacing crouch, his face no longer pleasant, but feral. I couldn't fight him off, I knew, but he would want me to try. The only way to stall him was to not play along.

I closed my eyes, refusing to fight, hoping it would buy me a few more seconds, but not expecting it to work. I shivered, waiting to feel cold hands and sharp teeth, but there was nothing, and then I heard James sigh.

"Trying to be brave?" he asked. He sounded amused.

"Is there any point in running?" I tried to keep my voice steady. I couldn't tell whether or not it was shaking as hard as the rest of me was. "You're just going to kill me anyway, aren't you?"

I heard James hum to himself for several seconds, and then there was a loaded silence. Cool breath blew across my face, but I forced myself to stay still. And then I heard the sharp snap of teeth an inch from my ear. My determination vanished, and the instinct for self-preservation took over. I turned and ran toward the door.

I had barely made it two steps before I felt myself being jerked off my feet, and then I was flying through the air. I landed against the short bar counter and slid toward the floor, pain blossoming in my side. I gasped for breath through clenched teeth. James wanted me to yell, to put on a show for him to record. I'd known what this would cost me when I'd decided to drag it out. I couldn't let him have what he wanted.

Light trickled in through the dirty windows, outlining his silhouette as he walked slowly toward me.

"Really, Edward? That's it? No screams for Bella and her family to enjoy? I know that must have hurt. I heard a couple of ribs break. There may even be some internal injuries."

Breathing through clenched teeth, I pulled myself into a sitting position. James watched me for a moment, then darted forward to grab my right ankle. He dragged me along the floor toward the center of the room.

"Trying to make it less painful for your girlfriend to listen to?" he asked. He tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. "Let's try this, then." His foot came down across my right leg. Even I heard the snap, and I couldn't hold back the yell of agony. Above me, James chuckled.

"Much, much better," he said.

The pain was unbearable. I pushed myself up on my elbows. Gritting my teeth against the scream that rose in my throat whenever I moved my leg, I tried to pull myself away from him. James only laughed.

"Shall I describe to them how you look, Edward? I think I should. Much better to give them a visual to go with the sounds, you know."

"I broke both bones in that leg. They're sticking out through the skin. Your foot's just . . . dangling there. It shouldn't be at that angle. And you're crawling across the dirty floor. There's glass everywhere, and your shirt's torn. Your nose is even bleeding. Tell them how much pain you're in."

But I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. There was something growing in me, a sense of defiance that was only fueled by the pain. Knowing that I wasn't going to survive only made it stronger.

"Kiss my—" Something hard hit my face, and there was a sickening thump as my head hit the floor. The light faded toward darkness, and then back again. I could feel something warm running down my face. Blood, I realized, tasting it in my mouth. I blinked, trying to make the world come back into focus as I stared up at him.

James had wanted to drag this out, to make me suffer, but I could see something growing in his dark eyes. He was through playing games. He leaned over me, and I reached up with both hands, trying to push him away, but it was like trying to push against a brick wall. He batted my hands away as if they were twigs, his nostrils flaring as his eyes fell on the blood running down my wrist.

I shook my head as cold fingers curled around my elbow. No, it was too soon. They weren't here yet . . .

And then he lifted my hand toward his face, and his teeth sank into the flesh of my arm.

. . . . .

**_Surprise! I'll bet you weren't expecting _****__****_Véronique _**, now were you? Just remember, I said at the end of the last chapter that Edward wasn't listening to a recording of his father's voice. I never said he was actually listening to his father . . . 

**_I've been planning Véronique since the very beginning of this story, so I'm thrilled that I finally got to introduce her. Even at the beginning, I knew I couldn't very well have James pull the same trick on Edward that he did on Bella (too predictable!), so I had to ask myself, "What other tricks might James have up his sleeve?"  
_**

**_Now let me see if I can anticipate some of your questions and answer them before you ask -_**

**_First, yes, I know that James and Victoria are "an item," and I fully intend for you to read between the lines and deduce that James has something going on with _****_Véronique on the side. Let's face it, James isn't exactly great boyfriend material, regardless of how devoted Victoria is to him. (Edward flat out tells Victoria in Eclipse that she was never more than a convenience to James. Yes, he is taunting her at the time, but I tend to believe that he is telling her the truth.) I don't think James feels any more for Véronique than he does for Victoria. She's just another female with a useful gift. On Véronique's side, she's fully aware of Victoria's existence, so _****_I don't think she's really in love with James, either. She doesn't really want James for her own, she just enjoys the excitement of being the "other woman" . . . and she's just twisted enough to enjoy James's company . . . every now and then. She's not attached enough to him to want to avenge his death if he were killed.  
_**

**_Now, as for Véronique's gift - it is similar to Zafrina's, but it doesn't work in quite the same way. Véronique can't make you see things that aren't there; she can only make you misinterpret something that actually exists. For example, if you were standing on a street corner in the middle of the city, Zafrina could make you think you were in the middle of a forest. Véronique would be able to convince you that a lamp post was actually a tree, but she couldn't create the sort of all-out illusion that Zafrina could. But, at the same time, Véronique can project her gift farther than Zafrina can - like across a hotel parking lot, for example.  
_**

**_So . . . what do you think? Questions? Comments? Did you like my little twist?_**


	23. SAVED (THE ANGEL)

23. SAVED  
_(THE ANGEL)_

For one horrible, dizzying moment, the darkness that had been pushing against the edges of my consciousness began to win. The room started to fade away, and the pounding of my heartbeat became a roar in my ears. Terror clawed at my chest.

And then I remembered that I wasn't dead yet.

Alice knew where I was. The Cullens were coming. All I needed was time, and I had to get away from James before I ran out of it.

Using what little strength I had left, I struggled to pull my arm free from his grasp, but it was useless. James's grip was like a steel vise. I clenched my left hand into a fist and pounded against the side of his face as hard as I could. He didn't even blink, but deep in his throat I heard him chuckle. He was enjoying this, relishing in my struggles as he drained my life away.

I couldn't fight him. There had to be something else I could do, some other way to get him away from me . . . and then, inexplicably, he lifted his head from my arm and turned his face toward the shadows.

What was happening? Were they here? My bleary eyes struggled to focus through the darkness, but when I finally managed to identify the figure standing beside the shattered aquarium, I was even more confused.

Because it was me.

I'd always heard stories of people who were dying floating above their bodies, looking down on themselves from above until someone shocked their heart back into beating and they were sucked back inside again, but I'd never heard of someone seeing their body standing across the room. Was I dead? No, I couldn't be. I could still feel the shooting pain in my leg, the ache in my ribs. The burning sensation where James's teeth had punctured my skin. Feeling James release his grip on my arm, I turned my attention back to him, but he was gone. In his place was the broken statue of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

What was happening? The answer came slowly through the fog that dulled my thoughts.

Véronique.

Something, some inexplicable awareness made me turn toward the entrance. Three figures stood just inside the doorway, outlined into silhouettes by the dull light streaming in behind them. Alice, Jasper, and Emmett. I was saved.

"Help . . ." I called, relief flooding my senses, but my voice came out as nothing more than the shuffle of tattered newspapers beneath their feet.

"Edward?" Alice asked, her eyes focusing on the figure beside the broken aquarium.

Hope turned to horror as I realized that maybe I was wrong. Maybe I wasn't saved after all. If Véronique could make them see anything she wanted them to see, if she could only let them hear what she wanted them to hear, could she keep them from smelling my blood as well? Would they even know I was here? Or was I nothing more than a broken statue to them . . . or a pile of old newspapers, yellowing into dust?

"Are you okay, Edward?" Alice asked, stepping forward.

"I'm here . . ." I called again, but the only sound was the shuffling of a rodent's feet across the dusty floor. No one even glanced in my direction.

"What happened?" Jasper asked Véronique. "Where's James?"

I yelled in frustration, but all I heard was the blaring of a car horn on the street outside. This was really it. I was going to die. I was going to die within feet of my salvation, only they would never even know that I had been there.

And then, suddenly, there was a blur and a snarl as something flew past Alice, and the broken dinosaur statue that was James was no longer leaning over me. He was himself again, and he was sliding across the floor with Bella on top of him as she ripped and clawed at any part of him she could get her hands on. They slid past Véronique, who in that moment flickered back to herself. No longer disguised, she turned to run.

Her escape was short-lived. She'd barely made it two feet before she stopped mid-step and froze, suspended in place.

I watched all of this dully, trying to understand what was happening. The adrenaline that had kept me going and given me the strength to fight was fading fast. It couldn't hold out against the pain of my wounds and the loss of blood. My ribs still ached, and my leg was still in agony, but there was a burning sensation creeping out from the place where James had bitten my arm. With every beat of my heart, I could feel it growing hotter and hotter.

I tried to think _through_ the pain as I watched. Alice, Jasper, and Emmett had joined Bella in her struggle with James. They were out of my line of vision now, but I could see Véronique across the room, frozen in place as Bella's father advanced toward her.

Off to my right, there was a short yell that cut off abruptly. Véronique screamed something in French, and then she, too, was silent.

I lay my head back down on the floor and closed my eyes. The fire in my arm was growing hotter. If it got much stronger it would rival my leg for attention.

Something cool brushed my forehead, a tiny comfort, and something sharp poked into the skin of my left arm. I forced my eyelids open to see a pair of worried golden eyes gazing down into mine.

"Edward?" Bella whispered.

I took a ragged breath, trying to respond, but then something moved my broken leg, and I screamed.

"Edward?" Bella said again, fear and worry in her tone.

"I'm sorry," came another voice. "I know this will hurt, but I have to stabilize this leg."

Carlisle. I nodded in understanding. The pain in my leg was getting weaker, and my thoughts were growing foggier. Whatever he had given me was working, but it wasn't enough to stop the burning. The fire was still growing stronger. I barely winced as he ran his hands over my ribcage.

"A couple of cracked ribs, I think," he said.

"Edward, I love you. I'm so sorry."

"S'okay," I managed to mumble to Bella. "S'my fault." I sucked in another breath through my teeth, trying not to give in to the fire burning its way toward my elbow. Bella's hand brushed against my cheek.

"Tell Alice," I muttered through clenched teeth. "Tell Alice to listen to the tape." Bella nodded. I didn't even question whether or not she understood what I was trying to tell her. I closed my eyes.

"Did you give him enough?" Bella asked. "He's still in pain."

But I knew why I was hurting. I knew what was wrong with my arm. James had bitten me.

"My arm," I breathed, trying not to scream as I pointed across my body with my left hand.

And then I heard Bella's sharp intake of breath.

"Carlisle! His arm!"

"He bit him," Carlisle said. He sounded shocked, horrified.

A cool hand came to rest on my shoulder. _Not Bella,_ something told me, and I opened my eyes dimly to see Alice looking down at me.

"So this is how it happens," she said softly, frowning down into my face. There was sympathy in her expression, and something else . . . strain.

"No," Bella said, shaking her head, and then more emphatically. "No!" She turned toward her uncle. "There has to be another way. There _has_ to be."

"The only other option is to suck the venom back out. The wound is fairly clean."

"Will that work?" Bella asked.

"I don't know," Carlisle answered gently, "but it's the only other option, and we'll have to hurry."

"Okay," Bella said after a moment. "I'll keep him still so you can do it."

"I can't do it, Bella," came Carlisle's soft voice. "There are too many injuries that need to be treated, and he's already lost too much blood. I have to get this bleeding under control, especially if we're going to be taking more blood out of his arm."

"I can't . . ." Bella whispered.

"Don't look at me," Alice said, tension in her voice. "It won't turn out well."

I opened my eyes again to see the expression on Bella's face. She was torn.

"But what if I can't stop," she asked, her eyes flickering toward Alice's face, but Alice said nothing. Either she couldn't see, or she didn't want to say.

"It's the only other choice," Carlisle answered sadly.

I looked up at Bella. I could see the sadness on her face, the expression that told me she would be crying if she had tears.

"I'm sorry, Edward," she whispered. "I don't think I'll be able to stop."

I knew how difficult this was for her. She didn't want me to become what she was, and I couldn't stand to see her pain. Fighting against the agony, I lifted my left hand and rested it against her cheek. It wasn't a smooth movement, but a jerky one. I took a deep breath and focused on one simple phrase.

"I trust you," I said, forcing myself to clamp my teeth shut against the scream that tried to follow the words out through my lips.

I watched unidentifiable emotions play over Bella's face as she gazed down into my eyes, and then her expression smoothed, and something new took its place. Determination. She reached down and lifted my arm gently toward her face.

Her hands rested in the same places where James's had rested, and even though I could barely feel them for the pain, I could see that their grip was gentler, kinder than James's had been. She glanced down at my face one more time, then lowered her head over my arm and pressed her cold lips against my skin.

The pain intensified, and I screamed, but instead of spreading the way it had been, it seemed more concentrated, more focused now. I couldn't move—something was holding me immobile as I struggled against the pain—and then the fire began to recede.

I was going numb, I thought dully. Everywhere the fire had been was going numb, and the pain that had kept me awake was easing, shrinking into a smaller and smaller point that rested just beneath Bella's lips. The darkness was soft now, gentle. It was calling out to me, coaxing me to give in, promising that everything really would be all right.

My vision was blurry, but I could still see Bella's expression. Her eyes were focused on my face, some intense emotion pulling at her features. The pain was almost gone now. My eyelids were heavy. They drifted shut.

And then I felt Bella lower my arm.

"Bella?" I managed to whisper. Several seconds of silence passed before she answered.

"I'm here." Her voice was strained. There was a ripping sound, like fabric being torn, and then cool hands wrapped something around my arm before lacing their fingers with mine.

"It's going to be okay, Edward," she whispered.

"Is it all out?" Carlisle asked. His voice seemed distant, as if it were coming from somewhere far, far away.

"Yes," came Bella's voice. It sounded closer, but distant still. "I could taste the morphine."

"Edward," came Carlisle's voice again. "How is your arm?"

"Better," I whispered. I tried to squeeze Bella's hand, but it was getting harder and harder to stay awake. "Thank you."

"I love you," she whispered.

"I love you," I whispered back, still fighting against the soft darkness.

"Edward?" It was Carlisle's voice. "Where is your father?"

"Don't know," I muttered. "Not here. Safe. James . . . tricked me. Véronique . . . gifted."

A strangely familiar scent drifted through the air. I struggled to place it. Gasoline? Someone—I didn't know who—lifted me gently into their arms. Bella's cool lips brushed against my cheek, and I remembered nothing more.

. . . . .

_**I apologize for this chapter being late - I hadn't intended it to take so long. Real life has gotten very complicated lately. My grandmother is seriously ill - the kind of ill that you don't recover from, so I haven't had a lot of time to work on this.  
**_

_**I thank you all for being such loyal readers and reviewers. We've got one chapter and an epilogue to go with this story, and while I can't necessarily promise that real life will let me post them according to my normal timeline, I promise that they will get posted.  
**_


	24. CERTAIN (AN IMPASSE)

24. CERTAIN  
_(AN IMPASSE)_

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was an unfamiliar white ceiling. Bright lights glared down on me from above. I turned my head away from them, staring at an equally unfamiliar window as I tried to remember where I was, but my thoughts were vague and slow to form. I felt like I'd taken too much cold medicine and only just awoken from a drug induced nap.

Somewhere close by, I could hear something beeping; the strange rhythm seemed familiar, but I couldn't remember why. There was something on my face, too, something hard and cold that lay against my cheeks and hooked under my nose. Someone was holding my hand. I could feel the cool firmness of their skin as their fingers gently squeezed mine.

I turned my head away from the window, relief easing my confusion as a pair of beautiful golden eyes met mine.

"Bella?"

I tried to squeeze her fingers back, but as the muscles flexed in my wrist, I realized that something felt wrong. Glancing down, I discovered a bandage wrapped around my lower arm. It began at my wrist and extended halfway up to my elbow. Something brushed against the corner of my mind, something that felt dark and terrifying. I pushed it away.

"Where am I?" I asked, my eyes moving back to Bella's face.

"In the hospital in Phoenix."

_The hospital? _

"Do you remember what happened?" she asked.

I closed my eyes, trying to do just that. I concentrated until the first memory came slowly into focus. An abandoned restaurant, dark and dirty, the floor littered with trash. Dinosaur Dan's.

I focused harder, digging deeper for more memories. I could see it now—James circling me, dragging me across the floor. I remembered his foot coming down across my leg, snapping the bones like matchsticks. His teeth sinking into my arm . . .

I shuddered, and the heart monitor began to beep faster.

"Edward?" Bella's voice was closer now. She sounded as though she were standing over me. "I'll go get a doctor."

"No." I squeezed her marble fingers as hard as I could, hoping I'd used enough pressure to convince her to stay. "I'm okay. Just give me a second."

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing the images to the back of my mind. I was here. I was alive. I would deal with the rest later.

I waited as the beep of the heart monitor slowed, then opened my eyes and tried my best to smile.

"See? I'm okay."

In a slow, fluid motion, Bella sank back down into the chair, but she watched me cautiously, as though not quite sure whether she believed me.

I focused on her face, keeping my eyes open as I struggled to remember beyond what I'd just seen. Everything after James's teeth was a haze of blood and pain, but there were flashes, half-formed memories of Carlisle trying to be gentle as he checked my injuries. I could remember Alice's voice, the strain in her tone as she'd tried to comfort me. The expression on Bella's face as she'd pressed her lips against the skin of my arm . . .

I didn't think either one of us was ready to talk about that just yet.

"What happened to James and Véronique?" I asked instead.

"We took care of them," she answered simply.

"What about your family? Is everyone okay?"

"We're fine, all of us."

I tried to lift my head off the pillow to glance down at the rest of my body, but the movement set something in my ribs to throbbing, and I winced. As I lowered my head back down onto the pillows, Bella reached over to adjust something beside me. The head of the bed began to rise.

The IVs all seemed to be in my left hand—probably because the bandage on my right blocked some of the space where they could stick in needles. There were scratches and bruises running down both of my arms, and my right leg was encased in a cast. I rolled a bit, trying to settle into the new angle of the bed, and my ribs protested again.

"A broken leg," Bella explained. "Three cracked ribs, multiple lacerations, and a concussion."

I nodded slowly. Considering what I'd been up against, I figured that was pretty good. I was still alive. I hadn't been expecting that.

"Why didn't you tell us, Edward?" she asked softly.

"He tricked me. I thought he had my father. He said he'd kill him if anyone else came. He . . ." I paused, shaking my head to clear it. If I wanted this to make any sense, I would have to start from the beginning.

"It was Véronique—the woman. She was gifted. She could take anything you saw or heard and make you think it was something else. She was working with James. She found us at the hotel. He knew where we were all along. I was just too well guarded for him to get close to me."

I saw Bella's jaw clench, but she said nothing.

"She was watching us the whole time, hiding in plain sight. When James called, she was close enough to trick me, to make me think it was my father on the phone, instead of James."

"I'm so sorry, Edward. We should have been more careful. We should have thought—"

"No, it was my fault. I should have told you the truth. I'm sorry."

Bella seemed to consider something for a moment before she spoke again.

"If she was gifted that way, then that explains what happened at the restaurant. The others said they couldn't see you on the floor. They said they thought you were standing across the room, but it was her."

I remembered the blur that had been Bella, the way she had ripped James away from me when no one else had understood what was happening.

"Whatever she was doing, it didn't work on me."

I smiled faintly. "Maybe Eleazar is right. Maybe you really are gifted."

But Bella didn't look too happy at the prospect. I changed the subject.

"What about Victoria?"

"She got away."

I wondered if we'd seen the last of her, but somehow I doubted it. The thought left an uneasy feeling in my gut. Was she as sick, as twisted as James had been?

Sighing, I leaned back against the pillows as gently as I could. There were so many things still bouncing around in my head, half remembered images from the restaurant that I couldn't put in order. I tried to shuffle them around, to make them make some kind of sense, and as I did, something new rose to the surface. I jerked up straighter in the bed, wincing because I'd forgotten to be careful of my ribs.

"The tape! Did Alice listen to the tape?"

Bella frowned at my torso until I eased back against the pillows again.

"Yes, she did. It explained a lot. Answered some questions she's never had the answers for."

"I wonder what she'll do, now that she knows? Is it enough information for her to go on if she wants to know more?"

"I'm sure it is." The ghost of a smile touched the corners of Bella's lips. "Alice is a master when it comes to finding things out."

I was about to ask, jokingly, if Alice knew when I'd be able to go home, but that reminded me that I didn't know how long I'd been there. I still felt groggy and disoriented. I'd assumed it was the pain medicine, but if I'd been sedated . . .

"Bella?" I asked. "How long have I been here?"

"A little less than two days. It's Friday morning."

"Friday morning?" I repeated dumbly. Oh no. "But . . . my mother . . . the hospital . . . they would have contacted her. How do we explain all this?"

"We already have," Bella assured me calmly. She smiled again, a sad little smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Your mother is here at the hospital. She's been here since Wednesday evening. She just went down to the cafeteria to eat breakfast. I told her I'd stay with you for a while. Your breathing had changed a bit, so it seemed like you were about to wake up. I wanted to be here when you did."

"What did you tell her?"

"The official story is that you were the victim of a hit and run driver in the parking lot of Carlisle's hotel. You had come to Phoenix to visit your father, but he wasn't home, so you stayed at his condo and waited to see if he would return. After a few days you gave up and went to find Carlisle at the hotel where he had told you he would be staying."

"He was walking through the parking garage when it happened. A black car came around the corner too fast and hit you. It knocked you into another car, and did a great deal of damage to it, as well, but the driver just kept on going. They tried to review the security footage, but the camera was out, so Carlisle was the only witness. It all happened so fast that he didn't get a license number. It was a good thing he was there, though. He had already patched you up a bit by the time the ambulance arrived."

I smiled faintly, trying to find some humor in the situation. "Too bad that security camera was out, huh?"

But Bella didn't smile back. I'd been hoping she would. I'd been hoping I could get her into a better mood, a lighter mood because I knew we couldn't ignore it forever. We needed to talk about the other thing that Bella had done to save my life, and I knew it wouldn't be an easy subject for her. I took a deep breath.

"Bella, what you did . . . I—"

But Bella shook her head and glanced toward the door. "Your mother's coming," she whispered.

I tried to focus past the sound of the oxygen and the beeping of the monitors, but I couldn't hear a thing. It was several more seconds before my mother appeared in the doorway.

"Mom?" I called as she came into view.

I heard her soft intake of breath, and then she hurried to the side of the hospital bed.

"Edward?" I could feel the relief in her voice.

"Hey, Mom."

She took one look into my face, then stepped away from Bella and rushed to the opposite side of the bed. Puzzled, I watched as she reached down to check the pulse in my left wrist, then I smiled.

"I think the monitors have that covered, Mom." But she didn't remove her fingers. I decided to be thankful that my mother was in nurse mode. In mother mode, she probably would have been hysterical.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Groggy. I think they've got me on the good stuff."

"How long have you been awake?"

"Just a couple of minutes," Bella answered for me. "I know the nurses wanted us to let them know when he was awake, but I wanted to give you a minute with him before they came back in."

My mother smiled. "Thank you, Bella."

"I'll go let them know." And then Bella slipped her hand away from my fingers and disappeared out the door. I couldn't stop my eyes from following after her.

"Are you in any pain?" my mother asked from the other side of my bed.

"Come on, Mom, cut it out." I gave her my best attempt at a teasing grin. "You're not on call."

She sighed and covered my hand with hers. "I know, but if I let myself think like a mother, I'll go crazy."

"Don't worry, Mom. I'll be okay."

"Thanks to Dr. Cullen. Thank God he was there." She took a deep breath. "The police are going to find out who did this," she vowed.

But I knew better. The police would never find the driver of the black car because there was no black car, and they would never find out who had done this to me, either. Even if they did, they'd never believe it.

My eyes drifted back toward the door, anticipating Bella's return.

"She and her father got here right after I did," my mother told me. "They must have been on the next flight." She paused as a nurse appeared in the doorway with Bella following along behind. "She's hardly left your side since she got here," she whispered. "I like her, Edward."

I smiled, my eyes meeting Bella's from across the room. "Yeah," I whispered back. "She's really something isn't she?"

. . . . .

I awoke several hours later to the sound of a whispered—but heated—conversation just outside my hospital room door. I glanced toward the clock on the wall. One in the afternoon. Bella was gone. Was she pretending to be in the cafeteria eating lunch?

"Don't be ridiculous!" came my mother's barely contained whisper from the hallway. "There is _no_ way you can turn this around. This is on _you!_"

"I told you that I called and left a message." My father's voice. The beep of the heart monitor fluctuated for a moment.

"Not on our answering machine, you didn't."

"I am not responsible for your malfunctioning answering machine, nor do I condone your irresponsible upbringing of my son. What kind of mother allows her son to run around an unfamiliar city the size of Phoenix? It's no wonder something happened."

"Oh no, you are not laying this at my door!_ You're_ the one who made plans and then brushed him off again, just like you always do. _You're_ the one who didn't even call. Who was she this time? Another new secretary? God knows I know enough about that."

"My personal life is none of your concern."

"When your personal life affects my son, Tony, it becomes my concern."

There was a lengthy pause. I could imagine my mother glaring daggers at him.

"Ten minutes to talk to my son, Lizzie. That's all." Another pause.

"Fine, ten minutes. But when those ten minutes are up, you can say what you want to say to him in front of me."

I listened to the sound of angry footsteps receding down the hallway and took a deep breath. Closing my eyes, I braced myself, then reopened them again.

My father stood at the foot of my hospital bed. His shoulders were squared, and his eyes were steel. He looked like a man who was used to getting what he wanted, one way or another, and my father was not happy. I braced myself, preparing for the dread to pool in my stomach at the thought of his disapproval, for the pang of disappointment that I always felt with myself whenever he was disappointed in me.

"Hey, Dad."

"Junior." That was his only greeting. Only that one, simple word that he always used. Not my name, not really. Junior. Like I was an extension of him, rather than being my own person.

He studied me for a moment, his eyes taking in the bandages, the cast, the equipment beside the bed.

"I'm sorry to hear that you've been injured," he finally said. "Your doctors all assure me that you are healing well and on course for a full recovery."

Of course he would seek out each and every doctor to ask about my injuries before coming to ask me how I was feeling.

"Why did you remain in Phoenix when you realized that I wasn't here?"

"I thought you'd come home," I answered. I had to remember the details, to play the part I had to play.

"I had to go out of town for business. I called and left a message, but your mother informs me that it was never received."

I didn't answer him. I didn't mention the message he'd left on our answering machine as I sat in the kitchen with Bella or the fact that I'd deleted it moments after it had been recorded. That was a secret I would carry to my grave.

"Junior . . . I am truly sorry about what happened. However, the fact remains that you should have known better than to stay in Phoenix without informing someone of the situation. It makes me question your upbringing."

I opened my mouth to defend my mother, but my father didn't give me the chance to speak.

"This summer, when you return for your internship at the firm, we are going to have a serious discussion about transferring you to a school in Phoenix for your senior year. There are a number of schools here that would be suitable in preparing you for Harvard, as well as having a number of activities available that would boost your college resume. It would be an excellent opportunity for you academically and would give me the opportunity to observe your conduct and teach you responsibility."

"No."

It wasn't the first time I'd ever told him that. But it was the first time I'd told him that and known that I wasn't backing down.

I had spent my life giving in to what my father wanted, burying my own wishes in favor of his. How many times had I given in, thinking that maybe, just once, I would finally do the right thing, say the right thing to make him proud of me? I had spent years believing that if I managed to be the perfect son for him, he'd actually deem me worthy of his time, that somehow I'd be more important than the next meeting . . . or the next "business trip" with his secretary. But even now, with those feelings still churning in my gut, I knew that something had changed.

Maybe it was finding Bella, finding someone that I wouldn't give up for anything, not even a chance at my father's approval. Maybe it was facing down James, looking death in the eye and seeing all of the things I wished I'd done differently. Or maybe I was just finally admitting to myself that I could never be the person my father wanted me to be—a carbon copy of himself. All I knew was that I couldn't do this anymore.

I took a deep breath and sat up as straight as I could without wincing.

"I'm not spending the summer in Phoenix, Dad."

"Yes, you are. We've discussed this."

He was used to some protest from me, but he was also used to pushing my wants aside, to telling me to give up my ideas in favor of what he wanted until I lowered my head and gave up wanting anything at all. I could still feel my father's disappointment, but somehow, the knot it left in my stomach wasn't enough to control me anymore.

"No, we didn't discuss it. _You_ discussed it. I don't want to do an internship this summer, Dad. I don't want to go to Harvard, and I don't want to be a lawyer. That's what you've always wanted me to do, but it's not what I want."

My father raised his eyebrows. "Don't be foolish. Of course it's what you want. It's what you've always wanted, and I will not let you waste this opportunity. You are coming to Phoenix this summer, and you are completing an internship at the firm."

"No," I answered calmly. "I'm not."

He stared at me for a moment. "It's the medicine," he finally decided, his voice softening slightly. "You are obviously not yourself at the moment. Perhaps we should discuss this later."

"I'm not changing my mind, Dad. I'm not spending the summer in Phoenix, and I'm not transferring here for my senior year."

"You're still too young to know what you want," my father said, "and too inexperienced to fully understand the weight of your decisions." His voice was hard and steely once again.

"Maybe, but that's part of life, isn't it?" I paused for a moment, considering. "I can come to Phoenix and visit for a few days this summer. That's fine, but I'm not staying. I'm going back to Forks after that, and I'm applying for a job at Newtons' this summer. You can argue all you want if you want me to stay, but I'll be eighteen in the middle of June, and there's nothing you can do to force me to."

. . . . .

"Hey."

"Good morning."

It was Saturday morning. The IVs were still in place, but at least the oxygen was gone. My father had stayed for another hour the day before, but after he'd realized that I wasn't going to go along with the internship or his plan for me to change schools, he hadn't had much to say. My mother hadn't exactly backed him up, either. Eventually he'd given up and returned to the airport to buy a ticket back to Colorado. He'd left a client's twenty-one year old daughter waiting on the slopes at Vail.

"How are you feeling?" Bella asked, slipping gracefully into the chair beside the bed.

"Sore, but better."

She smiled faintly. "Your mother seems to have made friends with some of the nurses here. They were heading down to the cafeteria together."

I glanced toward the bandage on my arm, then squeezed Bella's hand. We still hadn't talked about the _other thing _that had happened. There had always been someone else in the room, but we were alone now, and I didn't want to waste the opportunity.

"Bella . . . I haven't had a chance to thank you for what you did, for saving me. I know it was hard."

She froze. For a moment, she was as still as a statue, and then she spoke.

"It was the most difficult thing I have ever done, Edward," she said softly. "With all of the time I've spent around you, all of the hours I've had to grow accustomed to your scent, I thought I knew what to expect, but it was so much more." Her eyes flickered down to our joined hands, then back again. "I was so close to the edge, so close to forgetting myself. If I had . . ." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "If I had, I don't know what I would have done."

"But you didn't forget," I reminded her gently.

"No, but I could have," she whispered.

"But you didn't."

She fell silent, her gaze drifting over to rest on the rail of the hospital bed. There was something going on behind those eyes, I knew, but I couldn't begin to guess what. Sometimes it was maddening, watching Bella think.

"Edward, if it weren't for me, none of this would have happened."

And sometimes, what she was thinking made absolutely no sense.

"What?"

"If it weren't for me, you'd be back in Forks right now. You'd never have been in that field, and James would never have known that you existed."

I shook my head. "Bella, you can't blame yourself for this."

"But it's the truth, Edward. I've known from the beginning that this was wrong, that being a part of your life was too dangerous for you, but I was too selfish to walk away."

I tried to reach my left hand across the bed to touch her cheek, but I was tethered fast by IVs.

"Bella . . ."

"Maybe I should just go and let you live your life without something like me interfering again."

I stared at her for a moment, comprehension finally sinking in. This was about more than Bella feeling guilty. She was talking herself into leaving. Suddenly, I couldn't seem to breathe. Terror, or something very like it, was clawing at my chest.

"What about me?" I asked. "Don't I have any say in this? What if I don't want you to go?"

"I can't let you get hurt again—or worse—because of me."

"So that's it, you're just giving up?"

Bella shook her head.

"I didn't have the right to do this, Edward. I didn't have the right to fall in love with you and expect you to risk your life because of it."

I squeezed her fingers as hard as I could. "Maybe I didn't have a right to fall in love with you, either, but I don't regret it, not for a second." Sliding my right hand out from under hers, I brought it up to her cheek. "I can't go back to the way it was before, Bella. I can't go back to life without you. Please don't make me."

She looked away, her gaze focusing on the bed. There was something happening in those eyes again, something that made me think she'd be crying if she had tears. I held my breath as I waited—hoping, praying, going crazy wondering what she was thinking . . .

"I don't want to leave you any more than you want me to go," she finally admitted, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"Then don't make either one of us miserable," I begged her. "I know we don't have normal relationship issues, Bella, but don't give up on us yet. Please." I waited as she continued to stare down at the sheet.

"Okay," she finally whispered.

It was instinct that had me reaching for Bella's hand to pull her closer, even though I knew moving her was like moving a marble statue. Still, she reacted the way I wanted her to, sliding toward me and up onto the edge of the bed as though I'd pulled her there. I pushed myself up just a bit straighter and wrapped my arms around her—not an easy task with three broken ribs and a couple of IVs still in place. I buried my face in her hair as she settled into my embrace, but I kept my last thought to myself.

Bella was worried about what might happen to me, but I already knew how this would end.

_So this is how it happens,_ Alice had said as James's venom had slowly burned its way up my arm.

There had been no surprise in her tone, no uncertainty. It was something she'd known all along, something she'd been seeing for quite some time, although the when and the how were still a mystery to her. There were thousands of decisions that Bella and I would make, hundreds of paths we might walk down, but none of them mattered because the end result remained the same.

Someday, I would be what Bella was.

Alice was certain of it.

. . . . .

_Don't worry! I haven't abandoned this story yet! I promised I would finish, and I will, but I do sincerely apologize for taking so long to update. As some of you know, my grandmother passed away just a couple of days after I posted the last chapter, and it's only now that I'm starting to get things in real life (and in my fictional worlds) caught back up to where I want them to be._

_We still have an epilogue to go before we're through with this story, but I know that a lot of you have been asking about sequels. Inside my head, I've already imagined far beyond what I've posted. In fact, I've already laid the groundwork for some things that wouldn't happen for several books. (I promise, that extra member I added to the Denali coven is VERY important.) Now, whether those sequels will happen (or in what form) is still up in the air. I'm still considering my options, but I think, in the end, I'm going to leave that up to my readers. So keep your eyes open for further details._

_As always, thanks for sticking with this story and for offering your thoughts, opinions, and reviews! You guys are awesome! :)_


	25. EPILOGUE: PROM (AN OCCASION)

**_For those of you wondering about the possibility of sequels, please read the author's note at the end of this chapter._**

EPILOGUE:  
PROM  
_(AN OCCASION)_

The doorbell rang at six o'clock sharp. I answered it to find an angel on the front step.

Her eyes were bright, and her smile was dazzling. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders and down her back in soft mahogany waves that made me ache to reach out and touch them. Her dress was something blue and frilly that left her shoulders bare and my mouth dry, and on her feet were some of the highest heels I'd ever seen. For a moment, all I could do was stare.

"Wow," I said when I finally remembered how to speak.

Bella's smile brightened as she stepped inside. "You, too."

I glanced down at myself and laughed.

If Bella was the picture of perfection, I was anything but. Maybe the tuxedo wouldn't have been so bad if I'd been able to wear the whole thing, but the lower part of my right leg was still encased in plaster, making any sort of dress pants an impossibility. Instead, I'd been forced to settle for a pair of black sweatpants with part of one leg cut off. It wasn't exactly elegant, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances.

"Not even close," I told her. "But you—you look absolutely amazing."

My mother chose that moment to emerge from the kitchen. She spent several moments praising Bella's dress and shoes, then turned her eyes to me. "I'm just going to go upstairs to get the camera," she announced, an amused smile touching her lips as she pushed a small plastic box of refrigerated flowers into my hand. I stared down at the corsage, trying to remember how to tie it onto Bella's wrist. Bella smiled softly, sliding the flowers out of my hand and pinning them into her hair.

"You really didn't have to do this," she said as we made our way down the front walk some time later. I didn't know how many pictures my mother had taken, but it had been hard to pull my eyes away from the vision beside me long enough to smile at the camera.

"Have you ever, in all your years of high school, actually gone to prom?" I asked quietly.

"No," she answered.

"Then I had to."

I led Bella toward the driver's side of my car and opened the door for her. It wasn't exactly traditional, the girl driving the guy to prom, but my cast still prevented me from being able to use the pedals. Besides, it seemed kind of fitting for us. As couples went, we were about as nontraditional as you could get.

As we pulled into the school parking lot, I noticed Rosalie's red convertible sitting in its usual spot.

"Looks like Rosalie finally changed her mind," I noted.

We both knew, of course, as had Alice, that Rosalie had been planning to come all along. She had been adamant in her refusal for weeks, but I knew her well enough now to understand that it had all been for show. Rosalie loved any occasion to dress up and be the center of attention. She wasn't likely to miss an opportunity like this one. Still, deep down, part of me wondered if her refusal had had anything to do with me. Having Bella and her cousins come to prom had been my idea, and although the rest of Bella's family had accepted me into their lives, Rosalie still hadn't warmed to me even the slightest bit.

As we stepped through the balloon archway at the door of the gymnasium, I glanced up to see crepe paper streamers hanging down from the ceiling. Twisted pastel garlands were draped along the walls, and every table and chair was adorned with a tissue paper rosette.

Bella smiled. "Is this what I've been missing all these years?" she asked.

"It's part of the package deal," I explained with mock solemnity. "Cheesy décor is a prom tradition."

Stepping away from the ticket table, Bella and I turned toward the center of the gymnasium. A wide gap had formed in the middle of the dance floor. At first I thought no one was dancing at all, but as the people at the edges of the crowd shifted, I realized that everyone was gazing in awe at two dancing couples—Bella's cousins, of course. They were intimidating, perfect in their immaculate tuxedos and designer dresses, and they danced with a flawless grace that this gymnasium had probably never been witness to.

Even if I'd still had two good feet, I'd never have been able to dance like that. I glanced down at my cast apologetically.

"I'd ask you to dance, but . . ."

Bella said nothing. Instead, she took me by the hand and led me toward the middle of the dance floor.

"Um, Bella . . ."

"Edward Masen, you promised me the full prom experience."

"Yeah, but I hadn't figured this part out yet."

Bella just smiled softly and sank into my arms, pulling me into a slow, circling dance that didn't match the rhythm of the music at all. I smiled down at her, trying to focus on where my right foot was as we turned. She laughed and tilted her face up to mine.

"You're thinking too much," she said.

"I'm trying not to step on your feet."

"It's okay. I won't break." And then she lowered her head again to rest her cheek against my shoulder. The moment was perfect—too perfect to let it pass by. I told myself to stop thinking and pushed away everything except the girl in my arms. And for a little while, the rest of the world fell away.

It was some time later when a strange awareness began to brush at the edges of my mind. I glanced up automatically, my eyes drifting toward the edges of the dance floor to find Jacob and Josie Black watching me. I noted with some amusement that Jacob was wearing a dress shirt and a tie, and he looked like a fish out of water. But that was all I noticed about him because it was Josie who caught the rest of my attention.

I froze at the sight of her, shocked into immobility by the memory that rose to the surface. I remembered that dress, remembered the last time I'd seen it, though it had been her mother who'd been wearing it then. It had been their anniversary, and Billy and Sarah had brought the kids over to stay with my mother so they could go out for the evening. It was Sarah's 'special occasion' dress, the fanciest one that she owned. It was strangely disconcerting now, all these years later, to see it on Josie—to realize, in that one moment, just how much she was turning into her mother.

Bella stepped away from me, turning suddenly cold eyes in Josie's direction as she started across the dance floor toward us.

"Hi, you must be Bella."

Bella's eyes darted briefly toward Jacob, who was standing at the edge of the dance floor and trying to look like he belonged there.

"And you must be Josie Black." Her voice wasn't exactly cold, but it wasn't very warm, either. If Josie had missed her glare, she couldn't have missed the tone. She hesitated for just a moment, caught off guard by the coolness of Bella's greeting before remembering herself.

"Would it be alright . . . could I have just a moment with Edward?"

Bella nodded slowly and stepped away. People were starting to look in our direction. I could see the speculation growing in their eyes, the excitement as they began to wonder if a girl fight was about to break out at prom. Best to play it down, to make it seem like nothing was out of the ordinary. I reached down to pull Josie a step closer and did my best to look like I was dancing with her as I swayed from side to side without moving my feet. Unlike Bella, Josie's toes could be broken. She lifted her hands to place them awkwardly on my shoulders.

Dancing with Bella was one thing, but this was strange and uncomfortable, like two adolescents at a middle school dance.

"So, you came to the prom with your brother . . . and not even your own prom."

Josie averted her eyes.

"Yeah, um, Dad paid us twenty bucks to come."

Twenty bucks? What was Billy up to now?

"So that's what it took to get Jake into a tie, huh?" I glanced toward the refreshment table where Jacob was making his way through a tray of cookies. Something was different. He'd grown since the last time I'd seen him. Even from across the room, I could tell.

"And you in a dress. I'm not used to you looking like a girl."

Something darkened in her eyes. Oops.

"You look pretty," I blurted out quickly, trying to cover my slip. It wasn't a lie, even if I had said it to keep her from hitting me. She blushed and looked away. I decided to change the subject.

"Okay, I'll bite. Why did he pay you twenty bucks to come to someone else's prom?"

"He said it was a 'safe' place to talk to you." She shook her head. "I know, it sounds crazy."

Actually it didn't, and I was starting to suspect that I knew what Billy had in mind.

"He wanted us to tell you something. He said he'd get us that master cylinder if we did."

"Okay, so what's the message?"

Josie looked away again, clearly embarrassed. "I know this sounds crazy, but . . ." She paused and took a deep breath. "He wants you to break up with your girlfriend. He told me to say 'please.'"

"Wow."

"Yeah. He's been . . . kind of weird lately. He almost lost it when you got hurt down in Phoenix. He thought . . ." She trailed off, too embarrassed to finish.

"Josie, I got hit by a car. Some drunk driver, probably. They never found the guy."

"I know," she answered, eager to convince me that she believed. "He just . . . he doesn't trust your girlfriend's family, you know?"

"Yeah, I know." We had stopped swaying now. We were just standing in the middle of the dance floor.

"Can you give him a message back for me?" I asked. Josie nodded. "Can you tell him that Bella's family really did save my life? If it hadn't been for them, I wouldn't be here now."

She nodded. "I'll tell him," she promised, but I could see there was something more.

"That's not the whole message, is it?"

She shook her head. "No. He . . . he said to tell you, no, to warn you that"—she lifted her hands from my shoulders to make little quotation marks in the air—"'We'll be watching.'"

I smiled, forcing out a laugh even though there was a chill crawling up my spine.

"I'm sorry." She dropped her hands to the side and took a tiny step back. "I know it sounds ridiculous."

"Yeah. Well, tell him I said, 'thanks,' okay?"

She nodded, her eyes shifting slightly to focus on something just over my shoulder. Bella must be coming back.

I glanced toward the far wall. "You know, that guy over there in the corner's been watching you since you came in. I think his date ditched him. If you wander over in that direction, he might just ask you to dance." I saw Josie glance back toward the other side of the gym and the sophomore I had mentioned, but her eyes didn't linger very long.

"It was nice meeting you," she said instead as Bella appeared at my side.

"You, too," Bella answered, her voice carefully neutral.

"I'll see you around," I told Josie as she turned toward the refreshment table. I nodded in Jacob's direction, then tried not to smile when Josie grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him out the door.

"It seems that she wasn't interested in dancing with Andrew," Bella noted.

"Apparently not." I hadn't really expected her to. As strange as it made me feel, it looked like the closest thing in the world I had to a little sister had a crush on me. I shook my head to clear it.

"Do you want to go outside?" I asked Bella. She nodded and mumbled something about the smell and fresh air.

I led her out through the gym doors, past the couples who had given up watching Bella's cousins and were now dancing on the edges of the dance floor. As we stepped outside, I could see that the light was fading; the sun had stopped hiding behind the clouds and vanished below the western horizon. I thought about what Bella had said once, about how twilight was the easiest time of day, as I led her toward a bench in the shadow of the madrone trees.

"So, how's your first prom?" I asked as I took my place beside her on the seat. She chuckled as she reached up to adjust my tie.

"Well, I've been slow dancing with the handsomest young man in school. I do believe some of the other girls are jealous."

"That's just because their dates are all staring at you," I teased, but then her gaze flickered down toward my cast. Something changed in her eyes, and she looked away. I hooked my finger under her chin and tried to tilt her face back up, but she wouldn't budge.

"Bella. . . ."

She frowned for a moment, finally relenting and lifting her face toward mine.

"It's still my fault," she said softly.

"No, it isn't." I cupped her porcelain cheek in the palm of my hand. "You saved me, Bella. Don't forget that part." I rubbed my thumb across the curve of her cheekbone and smiled faintly. "My avenging angel, sweeping in out of the darkness."

"You still could have been killed," she reminded me softly.

"That wasn't part of the plan."

"And this was?" she asked, pulling away from my hand and gesturing toward my leg.

"Not exactly," I admitted.

We hadn't talked about this, not really, but it was something that we would have to talk about some day. I considered my options. Maybe it was best to bring it up now. After all, she could only get so mad at a high school prom. I took a deep breath.

"Bella, I made a conscious decision to let James beat me up. I was trying to stall him, to give you and your family time to get there so that you could take him out before he had a chance to turn the tables and start hunting you."

I saw something flash in her eyes.

"Edward! What were you thinking? What if we hadn't gotten there when we did? He could have killed you! He'd already bitten you. What if Carlisle hadn't thought of sucking the venom back out? It would have been too late."

I shook my head. "Maybe not."

Bella just stared.

"I didn't know if James would kill me, but the moment I decided to trick him into throwing me around that restaurant was the moment that I stopped expecting to make it out of there alive."

"You wanted to die?" I could see the confusion in her eyes, the hurt. I reached out to cover her marble hand with mine. I didn't know how she would take this.

"No, never that. I just wasn't expecting to . . . live."

I saw it then. One kind of horror replaced another in her eyes, and she jerked her hand away.

"Your burns," I told her, explaining even though I could see that she already understood. "Your father being dragged across the prairie. Esme's fall. Emmett being mauled by the bear. I knew how badly I'd be injured, but I knew there was another way for me to survive. It was the only chance I thought I had."

Bella was up now, on her feet so fast that my eyes hadn't been able to register the movement.

"You wanted to become a monster?" she asked. There was something in her voice, some edge that I couldn't seem to identify as either horror or anger.

"No, I just . . . I thought it was the only chance I had."

The fire seemed to go out of her at that, and after a moment she sank back down beside me on the bench. When she spoke again, there was a different edge to her voice. It sounded almost . . . fragile.

"And what about now?" she asked quietly. "Now that it's not your only chance?"

"I don't know," I answered truthfully.

"You don't know?" she asked, the pitch of her voice rising on the last word. I waited until her troubled eyes had settled on mine and reached out to take her hands.

"Bella, I'm not saying that I want it. Honestly, I don't know what I want. I'm seventeen years old. I haven't seen enough of life to know what I want out of it, but I do know that I love you, and that whatever I want my life to be, I want you in it."

I glanced away for a moment before looking back into her eyes.

"Anyway, it doesn't really matter, does it? It seems like the decision has already been taken away from me. Alice has already seen it, hasn't she? In Phoenix, she wasn't surprised that I'd been bitten. She hadn't seen it coming, but it was like . . . she was waiting for it."

"Alice's visions change all the time," Bella reminded me.

"I know, but judging by what she said, they all seem to end the same way."

"I don't want that for you," she said after a moment, shaking her head. "I don't want you to be cursed to this. I want you to live a normal, happy life, Edward."

"I know," I said again, "but Bella . . . it's something that we're going to have to think about some day."

For a moment, that fire was back in her eyes.

"No, it's not."

"I'm not saying now. I'm not saying next week, or even next year, just 'some day.'"

She studied me for a moment. "Why?" she finally asked.

"Because I'm only human, and it's hard not to be tempted. I mean it when I say that I love you and that I want you in my life, but there's a part of me that keeps thinking that maybe we don't have to settle for just one lifetime together. Maybe we can have forever, instead."

"You can't imagine what you're contemplating, Edward." She slid her hands out from under mine.

"Hey, I'm not contemplating anything now. Right now, I just want to spend the evening with the most beautiful girl in the world." I reached down to brush my fingers against a curl that had settled on her shoulder. It was just as silky as I had imagined—the only part of her that was soft to the touch. "We'll worry about tomorrow when it comes. Tonight, I just want to enjoy taking my girl to the prom."

She studied my face for another moment, then slid a little closer to me on the bench.

"But you're still going to think about it, aren't you?" she asked softly. "Some day . . ."

"Yeah," I said, "but not tonight."

She tilted her head to look up at me in the growing darkness.

"I love you more than everything else in the world combined," she said, reaching up to touch my cheek. "Isn't that enough?"

"Yes, it is enough," I answered, smiling down at her. "Enough for forever."

And then she lifted her face and pressed her cold lips against mine.

. . . . .

_And there it is - the end._

_I want to start by thanking each and every one of you for your reviews and support. **I honestly cannot say that enough. ** There have been many times when I was stuck with a writer's block and ready to give up on this, and every time, without fail, some new review would appear in my inbox at just the right moment, encouraging me to keep going, reminding me how much fun this universe really is. I've been writing this for you just as much as I've been writing it for me, and I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have._

_This has been, without question, the most involved project that I have ever undertaken. I started writing this in January of 2010 without really intending to do anything with it. It was just an idea, a passing thought of "what would Twilight have been like if . . ." that had taken root in my brain, and I started writing just to get it out. When it didn't go away, and when my version of the universe kept growing beyond Twilight, beyond New Moon, I realized that just a couple of chapters wasn't going to do it, so I set out to tackle an entire novel and decided to post it here. And it's been one heck of a ride._

_Many years ago, after falling in love with one too many fanfics that just stopped and were never finished, I promised myself that I would never do that to a reader, that I would never start writing a fanfic without knowing that I would finish it, and sadly, that promise is why I have decided not to write the rest of my "Looking Glass" version of the Twilight saga. My life has changed a lot in the past four years, and I no longer have the amount of free time that I need to do justice to Edward and Bella's story. Right now, it's a struggle to find the time to finish one chapter every two months. New Moon has twenty-four chapters and an epilogue. __Even if I were able to stick to my two months per chapter schedule__, I wouldn't finish that story until around May of 2018. Eclipse's twenty-eight chapters and an epilogue would keep going until March of 2023. And Breaking Dawn . . . well, you get the idea._

___**Now, before you stop reading, let me finish.** Yes, I know what happens in my version of New Moon. Yes, I know what happens in (at least some of) Eclipse. Some of the groundwork for Breaking Dawn has already been laid out in my version of Twilight. In fact, I've even added an epilogue to Breaking Dawn, a chapter that has no corresponding section in the original, simply because my version had a loose end that I couldn't bear to leave dangling._

___So I leave the decision to you____, my readers____. While I'm not going to be able to write these stories chapter by chapter, that doesn't mean they'll stay locked inside my head forever. What I do with them is up to you. I've had a couple of ideas - I could answer any questions you have about the rest of the "Looking Glass" universe in PMs . . . or I could collect all of the questions as a sort of Q and A and post it here as an extra chapter. I've also considered writing short summaries of the changes I'd make to the rest of the books and posting them as extra chapters on this story - one chapter per book. I am, of course, interested in any other suggestions you may have, so drop me a line and let me know what you think. Because I would love to share the rest of this world with you. After all of your time and support, it's the best way I know to show you how much I have appreciated each and every one of you.  
_

___Thank you for an amazing four years._

___Willa_


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